Hello lover....

I learned a very important lesson last Friday night.  No it was not, “do not eat any form of seafood the night before races,” but I should also file that one away in my cranium.  I learned that the stick (or in my case the rolling pin) and the foam roller are not created equal.  WTF!  I started using my rolling pin over 2 years ago to help work out the issues in my IT band, assuming it did the same thing the foam roller did. 

Until I tried out Megan’s on Friday.  I’ve been rolling like a crazy person since the Sioux Falls half, because I’m just so. GD. Sick. Of. being. Hurt.  After rolling religiously all week long, I hopped on her foam roller and was shocked that I still had muscles to roll out!  There were even a couple of spots near my knee that I’ve never been able to get a response out of from the rolling pin that were causing TEARS with the foam roller.  I rolled until I could roll no more (ok, really, I just couldn’t handle the pain anymore).

After completing Fargo pain free, my mission was to procure a new foam roller—stat! 

I hit up the local sporting goods store, and after hitting on some hottie in the hunting and fishing section (hubba hubba!) I had my new love!

We’ve already gotten in a couple of fights (meaning I’ve rolled twice and she made me cry.  Yes.  A she.  I imagine my foam roller to be a bit of an S&M chick with a whip!) but I’m willing to do whatever it takes to keep me from getting hurt every time I turn around.

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So with my big ZOMG MARATHON announcement out, I started marathon training on Monday.  I’m doing a 6 week Pfitz inspired plan that’ll hopefully get me 26.2 miles in one piece.  Wednesday’s workout was one I’d never done before 1,000m intervals.  Seems easy enough, right?  I mean, at least it’s not 1600m intervals, because those are a bigger B than my whip-crackin’ foam roller!

I was wrong.

They weren’t fun.

I had 9 miles to do with 5x1000m.  The recovery was stated at 50-90% of the time it takes you to complete your interval.  So naturally I skewed on the 90% side.

I did a 2 mile warm up and then got to work on some repeats.

4:50 - Felt like I was playing “catch up.” Usually I go out to fast and struggle to maintain. For some reason an 8:15 pace “felt” like 7:30s.

4:50 - Much better.

4:43 - Cruisin’ along.  What’s that?  Sideache.  Noooooooooooo!  I only have 48 seconds to go! That’s not long. Let’s countdown.  Pinching my stride while hauling now.  Longest 48 seconds of my life.

5:05 - From the first steps my sideache was back.  I toggled between slowing down to 8ish pace to get it to subside, and then hustling back, where it’d return.

Thought about calling it a day but decided I’d attempt to “toughen up” and do my 5^th one.

5:10 - Apparently I was pooped.  No energy.  No speed left.

And a two mile cooldown.  Who’s bright idea was it to put a speed workout in a 9 mile run?!?!? 

I did 9 miles in 1:25:22 for a pace of 9:29.

My repeats averaged a pace of 7:49.

The three that I didn’t die during averaged 7:39.

I was pretty ok with the workout until I calculated my total time for the 5k of speedwork and realized that it’s slower than almost all my 5k times for the past two years.  AND THOSE ARE WITHOUT 4ISH MINUTE BREAKS IN BETWEEN.  SHEESH.  Granted I was having my garmin clock .63 miles instead of .625, so that totally makes it ok right?!?!  :P

Oh well.  Guess I’m glad I’m running a marathon and not a 5k, eh?