feeling good.

I missed a workout yesterday and so I doubled up today. Initially I was hesitant, because I wanted both my run and my swim to be worthwhile, but I decided to give it a shot. I had to do the two workouts back-to-back because of my work/class schedule, but I went into it determined to go hard during both sessions.

I started out with my 40 minute run. I've been training around a 7:30 min/mile pace, and I incorporated 6 one-minute walks to recover. About half way through it felt like I hit a wall; my muscles were contracting, I was feeling tired, and I was breathing hard. I kept telling myself that I would be so mad at the end if I stopped midway through my run, so I ran 3 miserable laps around the track, hoping that it would get better since I still had 20 minutes left.

It was crazy, because all of a sudden, as I was pushing through, my pace got quicker, my breathing slowed, and my legs stopped hurting. It was an instantaneous change. I was shocked, and yet thrilled at the same time. I think my last half was faster than my first half! This phenomenon is encouraging, and I'll have to remind myself that pushing past the "wall" is worth it. So don't stop when you think you have to!

After my run, I headed to the pool, and I must say I was feeling pretty tired and incapable of busting out a swim workout. My main set was a 6x50 with 10 sec. rest in between. Each swim workout has warmup, cooldown, drills, and a main set that's usually the set that you're looking to dominate, basically. The main set is the speed work that helps you improve. Thankfully, I had a little swim coach to yell at me to keep going. Tiffany had run with me, and stuck around to time my swim. It was motivation and accountability to have her there, and so I did all of it. I wasn't as fast as I would have liked for my main set, but I was consistent and I finished.

One glass of milk, one PB&J, one cup of cottage cheese, and one Gatorade later, I'm exhausted.