Post Hard Race (semi-failed) Workout

Being a math teacher, I'm pretty good with numbers.  So why this didn't make sense to me earlier when I was getting mad at myself is still a mystery to me.

Today was my first real workout back after my half marathon 10 days ago.  Yeah, I did a fartlek and a "fast finish" 16miler (basically the last 4 miles are faster, like marathon pace), but no real "make me sore and hurt real bad during" kind of workouts.

Today's workout consisted of 6x1mile at 10k pace with 90sec jog recovery.  Based on my 1:20 half, my 10k pace is now 5:57....yeah, that freaked me out a bit too when I read Cari's training.

I knew this would be hard.  I had planned to run it in the morning before school, but was just too tired... plus, we don't have school today (thus this early morning post) as it's Yom Kippur, so soccer was canceled last night which meant I could actually do a workout AFTER school and still be home at a decent hour.  [For those of you who don't know, I live anywhere from 30-75 minutes from my school depending on if I stay with Ryan's parents or my parents and how bad traffic is, so doing my workout at 5:30 when soccer is over has me getting home no earlier than 8pm]

So here I am at LifeTime Athletic in Vernon Hills, which is SUPER nice.  As I'm heading up to my treadmill, I see one of my students, who of course says, "Hi Ms Aubert!" because I teach the best and nicest kids ever:).  Anyway, I find my treadmill, do my warmup 2 miles and drills and turn on some Pandora.  My left earbud dies.  This normally would not be a problem; however, the two guys on the treadmills on my left side are talking politics.

Yeah, you read that right.  Talking politics.  I am not into politics at all so didn't necessarily disagree with them, but OH MY GOSH find something else better to talk about.  I would have rather had them talking about the Packers' bad ref call for the whole time. Ugh.

So I get done with my first mile repeat and immediately switch to a treadmill furthest away from them.  MUCH BETTER.  The guys on either side of me are looking at me like I'm crazy, which is probably true at this point.  The treadmill was set on 10.1 (5:56 pace) the entire time, but by the third repeat, I started feeling fatigued.

I told myself what Earl always tells me, "focus on your form," and the fourth one was better.  The fifth one felt extra long and I could tell my hamstring was really more fatigued than the last two so decided to call it.

It's not smart to get that "last one in" when it could jeopardize my marathon.  Just not worth it.  I looked up the last time I did this workout...and I cut it short by 1 mile again then, too.  The pace wasn't as fast, but it was the hamstring that limited me then as well.  I'd rather err on the side of caution than tear it again, but it is pretty frustrating pulling the plug on a workout early.

I can only hope that all of this is getting me ready to be smart and rock my marathon.  Only time will tell!