My cardinal sin

After being without my car for an entire week, it has finally recovered from its epic breakdown and is back in my possession. Edited to add: not for long. The same light that signaled the whole problem is already on. Awesome.

It was basically like this, but dark out and with more crying.

Now, as promised, I can terrify you with my Run Less Run Faster so called taper. 

With the race only a week and a half away, usually I'd be enjoying a few nice, easy, untimed 5-7 milers. If I felt like it, that is. RLRF taper is a bit different.

Confession: I committed the cardinal sin of doing speedwork the day after my long run. On RLRF, you are never supposed to do back to back runs. It sounds crazy, but the book says it's important to recover in between each run, because they are all so intense. Luckily that part was in the first chapter, which was as far as I got. It turns out not all runners are as gifted in the art of writing as I am.

But my upcoming weekend is jam packed with so much freaking awesome that I refuse to take even 30 minutes out for exercise, so I had to knock out this week's 3 runs on Monday Wednesday and Friday.

Monday: It was disgustingly grey and rainy, so I stuck with the treadmill, because I'm a wimp and I wanted to watch Buffy. 

The workout: 1 mile warm up easy, then 5 x 1k @ 7:19 pace with 400 intervals, and a mile cool down. 

For the 900th time, RLRF, I'm not in this to improve my math skills, dammit. 

So at each mile, I ran at a 7:19 pace until I hit .62 and then ran easy, usually around a 10:00 pace until the next mile. Not exactly just throwing down a slow little 5 miler to get ready for race day.

Tuesday: spin class

Wednesday: more speed work!

The workout: 2 miles at 9:35, 3 miles at 8:00, 1 mile at 9:35

The actual:

This workout was one of those that I had anxiety about before I went to bed the night before, because running 3 miles at an 8:00 pace is no simple feat in my world. It was extra hard because I had a dream that Jillian Michaels was doing the workout with me, but not as my trainer, as my BFF. It was hard for both of us but we encouraged each other along and then went to a Ravens game when we were done. Imagine the trauma of having to wake up, realize she doesn't even know who I am, and then have to go do the workout alone. 

On the topic of serious problems in my life, Game of Thrones is already halfway through season 3. 5 more episodes and I'll have nothing to live for.

We all loved that little flashback of Ned in the opening credits this week, right?

So after all that fretting about this run, it actually wasn't bad at all. In fact, I actually feel like the speedwork is getting easy. I hate to even throw that out there for fear of the jinx, but I think it's true. I've had track workouts, tempo runs, and races that were gut - wrenchingly hard, and every single second I wanted to cry and had to constantly beg myself to keep going. With the exception of my first few runs on this plan, when I was recovering from a marathon and failing at reading charts, that hasn't been the case.

Today's run, for example, felt hard, but comfortably hard. Really, all my runs recently have, even though they've included paces that I initially laughed and/or cried at. Plus, I've mentioned numerous times that I have absolutely no problem with low mileage, in fact, I enjoy it. I think it's safe to say I'm a RLRF fan, and I'd like to put it out there now, because that could all change come race day!

What celeb would you want to come guide you through a workout? It doesn't have to be someone in fitness. I would also gladly accept The Rock, Katy Perry, or Jennifer Lawrence.