On the road again…

Back to feeling well this week so jumped on the road to Ironman Florida, again. I seriously question my sanity on a regular basis and then I hit a good workout and remember that I can do this. Today was one of those days.

I had a horrible ride yesterday. I thought I was taking it easy the first lap so I could push it a bit on the second lap. When I got to four hours (which was what I was supposed to ride) and was totally out of energy with a splitting headache, almost out of water, and still pretty far from my car, I stopped to try and regroup. Luckily, my friend who had been on the first lap with me texted right then to see if I was done. When I told her where I was and how I was feeling she offered right away to come pick me up. She arrived in no time with cold water and a snack to take me back to my car–seriously my hero! Felt pretty crappy the rest of the day and was just plain frustrated that I couldn’t but a good ride together seeing as how that’s the longest portion of this race. Slept long and hard last night and after an early morning at the dog park Annie and I came back home and slept some more. Guess I needed it. Was dreading my run after yesterday’s poor performance but drank a cup of coffee, filled up my water bottle, mixed a bottle of UCan, and headed to the Y to hop on the treadmill.

When the first song that came on was “Fight Song” by Rachel Platten, I knew today was going to be a different day. The runs I have been given have had the same instructions all week: run 5, walk 1 & push every other interval. I took a couple minutes to warm up with some walking and then got to work. As I continued to push myself, I was rewarded with legs and lungs that cooperated with my will. Every time I thought I might need to pull back, another awesomely motivational song came on and helped me push myself. In my last half hour (of an hour and a half) I was holding paces that I haven’t hit it a long time. It felt so good! And there was no pain!

So I have gone from being laid up in bed two weekends ago to the best run I have had this training cycle and I can’t wait to see what the next couple of weeks have in store for me!