Tuesday Tough Grrrrllll!: Patient Boy Edition

I had to drag Elliott with my for my track workout today. I'm doing my best to stay away from camp so Tommy can have a real-ish camp experience. (More on that in another post...)

The schedule called for a repeat of last week: 20 minute warm up, 6 x 1,000 at 4:30 pace w/ 2:00 recovery, 15 minute cool down. I talked to Elliott about whether he'd rather play on the playground at the track or ride in the stroller. He said he'd rather play on the playground... but I know from experience that he's good for about 10 or 15 minutes on his own and then he's "SOOOOOO boooorrrrreeeeddddd!"

Instead of risking him being miserable (and me being annoyed) I decided to park at the track, stick him in the jogger, and do the 20 minute warm up on the Bridge Falls path. That way he'd only suffer through (6 x 4:30) + (6 x 2:00)... hmmm that still equaled a LOT of minutes of alone time for Mr. Play With Me. As I was doing the warm up I changed my plans a little. I did the 20 minutes straight out (I usually run 10:00 out and and 10:00 back) and started my intervals on the path. Since pushing the stroller adds the element of no arms and extra weight, I didn't even attempt to use distance as my guide. I just ran hard for 4:30 and walked/jogged for 2:00. I was able to do 4 of these before we were back to the track. (Yeah, umm, it was plenty hard. I have no idea how far I went each time... but it was HARD!) At that point, E only had about 12 minutes of solo play on the playground.

When I got back to the track and began the 1,000s, I was completely unsure of how my pace would be. Going from pushing the stroller to not pushing the stroller felt great but I was already pretty pooped. I ignored my watch for the first set and came out at.... 4:29! I couldn't believe how well I nailed the goal pace. Freakish, you might say. The final 1,000 I REALLY felt after the first 300M or so but I pushed the final 200 and ran a 4:25.

I blew off the cool down because Elliott had been SO good and patient. And now... I'm waiting to hear from Scott about the car dealership. (Our new car already has bad brakes and we're making sure they'll give us a loaner for free while the fix it.) So, off the Manchester soon. Blech.

Thanks for the feedback yesterday on my canning/freezing/food adventure! One kind (local) reader has even offered to teach me to "do" frozen corn from her garden. Thanks, Carol!! I'll be there!!!