What's 1 more day?

I have had an absolutely horrible month on the training front. An entire MONTH. 4 weeks. That is a solid bit of time when you consider I am training for a half marathon. It started with me getting sick, then we moved, then we got 6-8 inches of snow, then we got another 18 inches of snow...and I just haven't picked things back up on a consistent basis since. It all boils down to excuses. One after the other. And in my head I kept saying to myself, "what's one more day going to hurt?"

I proved to myself today what all those extra days off really do hurt. On my training plan I had 4 miles scheduled yesterday. I had planned to go after work, but it was so cold and I didn't bring appropriate clothes for the treadmill (another effing excuse). So today I was determined. I was determined to go before work. I work at 1pm so it's not like I have to get up at a crazy time to get this done. I lounged around for 30 minutes longer than I originally planned...and you guessed it...thinking of another excuse not to go to the gym this morning.

Well, I went. And it was miserable. I horrible 4 miles. In all honesty - the first 1.5 miles were good. I was feeling confident that I had not lost everything I had worked so hard for before. Well, that confidence was kicked straight to the curb and in a hurry. My run when down hill very quickly. At the 2.25 mark I had to stop to get some water. I didn't bring a water bottle for me. This was almost my excuse to quit for the day. The good news - every time that I wanted to quit, I thought about my blog. I knew I didn't want to blog about falling short. For that, I am thankful to anyone reading this because even if you don't know it - you are keeping me accountable.

Most of my run was at 6.5mph (9:15/mile pace, I think). Occasionally I would bump it up to 7mph (8:35/mile pace). And for the last half mile I did bumped it up to 7.5mph (8:00/mile pace). An 8 minute mile pace was pushing it for me a month ago. So that 8 minute pace for even just a half a mile kicked my butt. I knew I needed to kick my own ass for even just a half mile as a small extra punishment for all my time off.

I took a post run pic of myself in the gym bathroom. I have named this the "huff and puff face." How ridiculous do I look? My face was beet red. I don't think that's captured in this pic very accurately. I am, however, wearing one of my favorite running shirts. If I am going to have a horrible run - I would like it to be in my pink and yellow livestrong shirt.