Not Dead Yet

Yesterday was another great test of my body's durability. The team warmed up on the bluff and then headed over to the "north path" behind the soccer field for the workout. We did a total of 12 600's in 3 sets of 4, each set progressively faster than the previous one. It didn't seem terribly difficult on paper, but the competitive nature of my teammates made it a little bit insane. I was being chased all the way through by the group behind me, nearly on the verge of panic due to the fact that I was being caught by people who were supposed to be running slower than I was. As I hurdled the mud puddle and climbed the small hill east to the lake I could hear the relentless breathing and pounding of footsteps from behind, see the shadow of Jon coming to eat me. It was just the extra motivation I needed to run that little bit faster, and I know it helped them as well having some bait to chase after. On the last set of four we were supposed to run normal pace to the corner at the top of the path, then sprint full speed down the back stretch to the finish. When Jon and I reached the orange cone marking 400 meters we were greeted by Russ, who promptly screamed "Monster all the way down! How much pain can you handle?!"
It was the perfect thing to hear at that point and gave us the inspiration to turn on the jets and fly down that hill. I more or less ran out of energy on the last couple of loops but was still able to blast it at the end. Afterwards my legs were so sore that the cool down felt like finishing a marathon.

This morning I (barely) got to sleep in, since I didn't have to run in the morning. Instead I spent my time finishing an essay and rushing to class at the last minute. Actually I was five minutes late due to the parking debacle. This afternoon Russ only had my group run 4 miles, which felt like a warm up but was probably just what my body needed. I was quite sore throughout the day and am actually pretty impressed that my knees and achilles held up the last three days. I'm at 42 miles so far this week, on pace for about 70 total. Unfortunately I'll have to miss the Parkside meet on Saturday because I have a 1-credit rock climbing class, and will probably have to do a workout by myself early that morning.