Three things Thursday - mental incompetence edition

As I sat here this morning reflecting on the items I wanted to include in my post, I realized they are essentially both examples of my mental incompetence. So, I'll do a Three Things Thursday about how I tend to be dumb. I only have two in mind as I start, but coming up with a third shouldn't be too challenging.

Thinking fail #1 - My Training Days

Kari and I have been following the Run Less Run Faster plan, which only includes 3 runs per week. When we initially discussed it, we mapped it all out on google calendar (actually she did that, I didn't really help at all) and our weekday runs were Tuesdays and Thursdays.

After suffering through two weeks of late Wednesday nights (I get home from my second job at about 10pm and that's basically an all nighter in my world) and then waking up at the crack of dawn exhausted on Thursdays, it finally occurred to me to shift the runs to Mondays and Wednesdays. Duh. 

Thinking fail # 2 - Pacing

 As I'm sure no one remembers or cares, when we first began RLRF, I nearly died on trying to hold the prescribed paces, and ended up having to go slower. That was also when it was still below freezing and sometimes snowing in the mornings, and right after I got my favorite new toy, so all my runs were on the treadmill. Our treadmill is fantastic, and I am not putting her down in any way. But she doesn't tell you the pace you are running, just mph (aka you can set it at 6.0 but it won't tell you that is equivalent to 10 minute miles. 

I was using this conversion chart. But numbers are hard. And charts are hard. So on Monday, I realized I was reading it wrong.

I was looking at the circled column.

When I thought I was running an 8:15 mile, I was actually running a 7:54 mile. Mystery solved. 

Thinking fail #3 (I thought of it.) My Training Times

As I mentioned, even on Monday, which was day 29 of Whole30, I still had no Tiger Blood, and couldn't drag myself out of bed. When I got home from work, I ran to the track to do my speed intervals. I failed to take into account that it's spring now, so there was some sort of game going on inside the track, and bleachers full of parents watching. I turned around and ran home to do my intervals on the treadmill without an audience. 

So far, I've had another good week of training (knock on wood). 

Monday: 2.25 miles outside (to and from the track), interval workout on the treadmill. Run a 400 (quarter mile) at 7:09, easy jog a 400 (10:00 mile), repeat ten times, cool down for .75 miles

Tuesday: Early morning spin class - this turned out to be significantly harder than I thought. My quads were screaming, which is probably a good thing.

Wednesday: 8 miles at goal marathon pace (GMP), 8:53. I woke up at 4:45, had some coffee and a snack, and then felt strong during the run and ended up running at an average pace of 8:40. This surprised me because usually I can barely hold a 9:40 pace and then I just blame the hills and earlyness. 

I hope this post has made you feel smarter in comparison, which was my intention.

Any thinking fails this week?