Run with me through hell

I knew I'd need some serious inspiration to make it through tonight's run, so I fired up Lamb of God's Sacrament album. The first track was "Walk With Me Through Hell", and that pretty much set the tone for the day. With only a few weeks until racing begins, it was back to the Daniels I-pace, with increases from the last time out. I re-read the section on interval pace running, and one point that Daniels makes is that the goal is VO2 max training, and time spent at VO2 max. It takes about a minute for the body to respond at each interval, so a three minute repeat will give you two minutes at the target effort. So comparing last workout (5x3 minutes) to this one (2x5 min/3 min), it was only one more minute at speed (15 vs. 16), but two more minutes at VO2 max (10 vs. 12).

I knew if I could survive through the second five minute repeat then I could get through the workout. But accomplishing that was tough. With the treadmill, there was no way I could bluff my pace. The first five was a solid effort, but not deadly, and even the first 3 wasn't horrible. But by 4 minutes into the second five, I knew I was entering the deep water. I tried to channel what I imagine the Team TBB athletes go through during their track sessions, and I let the drumming of Chris Adler wash the pain away. Then I still had three minutes to go, but I knew I could suffer for 180 seconds, so I did.

It's runs like this that make me think I need to contact my thesis committee, and let them know that I must have fooled them, because I'm not as smart as they were led to believe. You get off the treadmill, and once enough blood is back in the brain, you think, "Why do I do this?" And to answer that question, a quote from Chuckie V:

I do today what you won't, so tomorrow I can do what you can't.

Run: 2.5 miles ez
Run: 48 minutes, w/2x(5 minutes @ 9.9 mph, 3 minutes @ 7.3 mph, 3 minutes @ 9.9 mph, 3 minutes @ 7.3 mph)