Working Hard

  So I've been pushing myself this week.

I am working very hard on following my training schedule. On Monday night I ran about 2.5miles. I circled 3/4 of campus, turned around and re-ran it so I got the hills done twice. Felt pretty good about myself after that. Well... that and the fact that by the end of the night I had over 15,000 steps in for one day. :) I usually shoot for at least 10,000 so that was a great way to start my week!

I had class this morning. Can you tell from the photo of my shoes that I shouldn't get dressed in the dark at 6am?



Yes, those are two different shoes.  The left is my second pair I ever ran in and the right is the "newer" pair I bought last summer and am finally breaking out of (notice my trouble area - my pinky toes!).
  No one noticed but me - and I only realized when I was stretching.  Oh well.  Lesson learned. :)
  Today we did 4x4laps.  Each lap we had to run faster so that was a challenge.  We were supposed to start with a  6min pace but it ended up being under that.  The second and third set Mary kept me on my toes - she was kicking butt!  I kept teasing her that she was the Jeff of the day since he always does that to me.  We made under a 5 min pace both times easily.  After the 3rd set Mary thought she was going to throw up so she took the last set slow.  Mel ran the last set with me and kept pushing me to go faster.  I didn't think I could do it,  but I ended up doing super close to a 4min pace.  It was an amazing feeling to finish all 4 laps when everyone else was just finishing their 3rd.
  While we were running Mel kept telling me how far I've come and how much I've impressed her.  That made me feel really good - I wouldn't be where I am now without her and Eddie's help.  They have been so great about making me do timed runs, fartleks and pushing myself harder and faster each class.  And it's obviously starting to pay off.
  I am hoping to get a little time off so I can race in August.  I'm definitely running a race in September just to prepare and then we have the 10k at the end of October.  Still nervous because that's going to be almost a full hour of running and I'm not quite there yet but I'm hoping to get as close to under an hour on that as possible.  I'll also have to update my song list for the race.  I have enough to get to my PR and the walk afterwards but I'll need to add a few more and figure out some power songs for when I get close to the finish line to keep me going.  That'll be the hard part.
  Might do another run with Eryn tonight - something to keep my miles up.  Also planning a run tomorrow night and hopefully I can hit the river this weekend to pick up some miles.