My million dollar idea (don't steal it)

The trouble with using a shorter race as a part of a training cycle (in my case, a half marathon while training for a full) is that after a hard effort, you can't just take it easy and dust your shoulders off, you actually have to just keep training.

This week is one of the real killers in my training plan with some super high weekday mileage. Monday I had a huge conundrum. Schools were closed for students, so after a morning meeting I was free to do my report cards on my own time, which meant that I could have knocked out one of the long runs during daylight hours. I wasn't exactly sore, but my legs definitely felt that tight "time for a rest day" feeling. And THAT meant waking up at ungodly times the rest of the week. It's amazing the tough decisions I have to make.

In the end, Mother Nature took over again and slapped us with freezing rain. I was slipping and sliding walking to my car at noon, so a rest day it was. 

As I suspected, working from home was the BEST THING EVER. Just check out this sweet setup. I was so relaxed that I knocked out my report cards in record time.

You can't see it, but of course this included pjs, a cozy blanket, and the heat cranked.

Now my life goal is to work from home, and I'm really upset that I love my job and it's not really conducive to working from home. It remedied the two things that I really, really hate about work.

1. Temperature - in the winter my fingers are constantly blue, and there's no AC, so just imagine that on those 90 degree Baltimore days.
2. Dressing professionally - I think we can all agree that this is just the worst.

Over spring break I plan on working to invent and open a school where teachers sit on couches in pajamas, covered in blankets, and the kids all sit around you while you teach. Basically what you see above, but with children. I'll even sacrifice Bella and Edward and save that for my free time. The kids can wear pajamas too. 

On Tuesday, it was back to reality and I jumped right in with a 15 mile run. Yes, 15 miles, and no that wasn't my long run for the week. My second grad class started that afternoon, so I had to be up at 4 and running at 4:30. I was pretty tired (shocker, I know) but luckily Lily joined me for 7 miles somewhere in the middle and that really pepped me up. The main motivator was the weather - 40 degrees at the start! I even wore capris.

I was worried about falling asleep in class, but the strangest thing happened - class was actually interesting, and seemed completely relevant to my career. I'd heard of this wonderful phenomenon, but it was my first time experiencing it.

That 4:30 am wakeup is such a bitch though - she'll always get me in the end. I was supposed to do 10 today, but I felt like I'd been hit by a truck when my alarm went off and decided to save that for Sunday and do an easy 5 today. It felt anything but easy and I was glad I wasn't wearing my Garmin, because I'm sure my pace was like 12 minute miles. 

Basically I'm getting all the runs on my plan in, but none of them will be on the day they were supposed to be. 

Everyone loves working from home right? Asking who likes that would be like asking who likes sleep or dessert or oxygen, right?

Do you try to follow your training plan day by day or mix everything up to fit in your life, like I do?