Back on Track

It can be done: a long run and speed work back to back. My list of excuses is diminishing, since I've proved that I don't necessarily need a "rest day" between two difficult workouts. I was actually pleasantly surprised today how good I felt when I started my speed work (the key word here is "started," how I felt at the end was a different matter). I warmed up for a mile then ran two 800m (half-mile) repeats at my goal race pace for my upcoming 5K. The first 800m felt relatively "easy," I was surprised at how comfortable I felt at a 7:30 min/mile pace. The second 800m was not so easy, and there was no third. Instead I switched to 400m at a slightly faster pace, which was a little more manageable. Somehow watching the little blinking arrows go around the "track" on the treadmill screen only once is so much more bearable than twice.

But today's real victory was not the fact that a 7:30 pace felt "easy," it was the fact that Sophia took a bottle again! I left my poor husband to suffer through her hungry and frustrated screams while I escaped to the gym. I half expected, when I returned an hour and half later, that her cries would greet me as I walked in the door. But no! Thanks to my husband, Mark's patience she was fed and sound asleep. Happy 'sigh'. My outlook is no longer as bleak as it was on Tuesday: we will be able to have a date night again!