New running gear, pain, and other reasons to love speedwork

Today it was cold, cloudy, rainy and windy all day. With it getting dark at 5pm now I envisioned dropping temps, biting wind, and drizzle for my speedwork session tonight, so I had to roll out some new gear.....well, maybe not so much "new" as "totally forgotten since the spring thaw."

You see we're lucky like that here in Wisconsin. With every change of the season its like shopping in your own closet. You end up digging in the back of that dresser drawer, or in that box you had to retrieve from storage, and pulling out all kinds of stuff you forgot you had. And it's the best kind of shopping because its FREE.

So I dug deep, and busted out the fleece hat and the headlamp for tonight's workout. And yes, we may have looked a little silly running around the track with our little headlamps on. But is the headlamp not one of the great inventions of all time? Dork factor aside, those little guys are pretty handy.

Ok, back to the workout....

I can be a bit of wimp sometimes. Today was no exception. The weather was not the "oh yay, lets go running" kind of weather that gets you pumped about leaving work and heading for the track. Today was more of a "I'd really like to stay late and get some more work done" kind of day. So mid-afternoon I was starting to look for excuses. I knew, no matter how miserable the conditions, I would feel great after doing the workout. But I went fishing for an out anyway.

I sent off a quick email to my 'coach'....."we run rain or shine?".....secretly hoping she was thinking about bailing. She wasn't. (well actually I found out later she was, but she didn't want to let on)

Darn. Still on.

So we rolled into the parking lot at 5pm ready for the worst mother nature could throw at us. Except that mother nature wasn't feeling nearly as crabby as she was earlier in the day and it was downright pleasant out. Aside from it being almost dark that is.

Turns out, it was probably best that it was dark seeing how I'm not all that attractive when I'm in pain. 800m repeats tonight. Whole new pain experience. In fact during our cool down we had a very in depth discussion of the varying types of pain and each of their benefits.

I have a feeling these speedwork sessions are just going to get more and more "fun" as the winter wears on. ;)

But its all good, because now I have plan. Really, an actual black and white plan. With quantifiable goals. So it all makes sense. And I understand that the pain is just a necessary step toward the end result. Which makes it surprisingly more tolerable.