Saturday, October 6, 2012

Starting the next stretch

Today I woke up around 12:30. To the average 9-5'er, that probably sounds incredibly lazy. And to those that would know that my fiance had been awake and hard at work harvesting corn since 4AM, that probably sounds ridiculously lazy.

But if we turn the tables, and think about in terms of nightshift, 12:30 is actually quite early, especially when you consider that I had to be at work from 6PM-6AM.

But when you can't sleep, you can't sleep. So I woke up. I checked my e-mail, reviewed some wedding planning information, played around on Facebook for a while, drank my vanilla protein shake, my Rocket Fuel, (my beloved green tea), and eventually checked my Weather Channel app.

At 3PM, I finally headed out the door for a 4-mile run. And I will be honest: after yesterday's 8-miler, it was brutal. Very brutal. After not really sleeping good, the chill in the air, the wind, and the fact that I just...really didn't feel like it, (in reality I would've preferred to sit inside and enjoy the last cupcake leftover from my bridal shower), that impending 4 miles seemed like torture. So I made myself a promise: "just finish the first mile. If you still feel like crap, you can at least turn back around and be back home in 8 minutes." So I took off, the wind in my face, (and down my long-sleeve fleece), "Tootsie Roll" turning my feet over.

At 3:10PM,  I was into Mile 2 and blew my farmin' fiance a nice little kiss as I ran by him, sitting in the semi, waiting for his next fill.

At 3:15PM I slowed back down, grateful that I had finally passed out of his sight. (Yeah, I do it, too; when I pass people I know I kick it up a notch.) The wind was pretty brisk; Weather Channel said it was only 53 degrees, and it was pretty overcast. For 3 out of my 4 miles, I was straight into a cold headwind that was akin to having someone's icy freezer-fingers tickling me right under the chin.

And like running into a wall. Yup...headwind into a wall.

But the pep in my step returned as I entered Mile 3, and my chilly-willy-nilly run warmed up a little bit as I changed directions from the wind, and the pavement under my feet was flat, smooth and otherwise a welcome break from having to constantly ditch rocks, stones, gravel and my new seasonal broken-bone favorite: walnuts. I managed to maintain a good 8:00-8:30 mile pace, and after I turned down my road, my pace picked back up even more, (so much in fact I actually had to unzip my quarter-zip to allow some of my steam to escape), and I finished strong, grateful that I forced myself out.

And at 3:36 I was finishing my cool-down walk.

4PM spawned my get-ready-to-nurse-all-night shower and get ready routine. (Hair, make-up, what super-baggy scrubs I plan on wearing).

4:30PM I'm packing my lunch and heating up my Lean Cuisine.

In between all this, I'm thinking about what work-outs I need to get in for the week-end, what mileage total I want to accomplish, when I'm going to suck it up and spend an afternoon inside with one of my Jillian Micheals strength DVDs, how I'm going to squeeze in a relatively appropriate amount of sleep over the next 6 nights, when I might get to at least see my fiance face-to-face...and on...and on...and on...

And I don't even have any kids!

At 5:30PM I'm packing up my truck and heading out the door to start my 20 min drive in. As I drove, contemplating today's run, I got to thinking about my most obvious point, and that would be that my routines during my "work-week" isn't always the most conducive to most standard training plans, and really, that's okay. Example? My training schedule dictated that today (Saturday) I was supposed to do 8 miles, but knowing full well that I probably wouldn't sleep the best, that it was going to be the second night of six, and (duh!), today was forecasting wind and rain, I did my eight earlier this week. And then squeezed four in earlier, and will probably do my DVD, (or take today as a rest day, who knows?), today. At the end of the week, as long as the miles get done, and done in way that I can at least part of, if not all, of them, then you know what? That's okay. I have figured out that most training plans are written for the "9-5'ers", who aren't working at 1:30AM on a Saturday night. So as a shout-out to all my fellow night-shift runners who have an "off day" with their training.

Just like this entry, my training may seem a little unorthodox, a little disjointed, a little screwy at times, but that's life.

And I like my life.

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