Tread hell

Up on the training calendar for today was a 4 mile run. It sucked. There is no way around it, it just sucked. Now that it gets dark when I'm leaving the office, I am chained to the treadmill during the week. I wasn't off to a good start when I got to the gym and realized my ipod was dead. Bleh. Trying to read the closed captioning on the TVs in the gym makes me a little dizzy so I tried to occupy my brain with people watching. Normally I love people watching but not when I'm sweating like a banshee and I want to cry.

I started with a 1/4 mile walk warm up. Then a painful 1 mile run. Damn these shins. I took a 1/4 mile walk (wayyyyyy too slow I'll point out) break because my shins were still on fire. I started to run again and I wanted to quit every single step. Bleh. But I made it another mile before taking another 1/4 mile walk break....then a mile run. The burning from the fronts of my legs started to subside but at this point, I was starting to get hungry. I went from the office, changed clothes at home, had my nightly chat with The Pilot and then went to the gym. I had a fruit strip (the REAL fruit roll up!) before heading to the gym but at mile 3, that was obviously not enough. Bleh.

I wanted another walk break but that's when I noticed my time. If I took another walk break, it would have officially taken me longer to do my run/walk combo than if I would have race walked the entire thing. And I couldn't let that happen. Not when I have a PR to chase down. Instead of walking, I sped up the treadmill. Maybe not the smartest, but I was annoyed and wanted to be done. I slowed back down for the last tenth of a mile to cool off a bit. 4 miles in 56 minutes. Bleh. But, I didn't quit at 2.5 miles like I really wanted. And I didn't chew my own arm off at mile 3 like I really wanted. I finished all 4 miles that were on the schedule and I did it (slightly) faster than a race walk pace.

I am now home and have had dinner and while I still think it was a craptastic workout, I'm glad I didn't give up, because then I would just feel worse.