Obliterating Obstacles!

Yikes! I overslept!

That was my first thought of the day and no, I didn't oversleep. It was just the back porch light that decided to go on and off throughout the night. Honestly, I didn't even know that sensor light worked and never saw it on for over 2 years so what is up with that?

It was only 3:48 am and even though I did snooze until after 4:00 am (guess I did end up oversleeping after all), I got up and headed down to the gym. My mental state was grouchier than anything and even though I logically knew running would make me happier, overcoming this mental road block served to be obstacle 2 for the day. (By the way, obstacle 1 was oversleeping.)

I told myself that I had to run and just get there and get it done. I told myself all I had to do was 3 miles this morning and I could do another 2 in the evening. I told myself not running was not an option.

So after chastising myself, I hopped onto the treadmill and set my plan to do some hill repeats. Isn't that what you do when you are resisting a run? Increase the intensity? I altered every two minutes between a 3% incline and a decline. Furthermore, every 10 minutes I increased my pace. I was going to run the grouchiness out of me if it was the last thing I was going to do this morning!

I ended up running for 35 minutes with my 5 minute cool-down (but really, that just meant I was running at no incline for 5 minutes). My overall pace was 8'44" and I can't wait to really analyze those splits since I did run my downhills faster than my uphills. The end result - 4.02 miles completed. And how is the running mom? Much happier!

And now for some gratitude. Thanks to Secrets of a Running Mom, I am now the proud owner of a cute 13.1 bumper sticker for my car! I love that the text is in purple since it is my darling daughter's favorite color. She helped me find the perfect spot and place the bumper sticker on my car and ran off to get my dear hubby to show him. I must say, I don't think he felt the love as much as my darling daughter and I did. He kinda looked at it and then asked "what does it signify?". Oh my! I felt crushed and immediately thought about the post on 365 Runs....hopefully. I know I commented that I could see someone in my neck of the woods not knowing what a 26.2 (or 13.1 in my case) bumper sticker meant but I  never imagined it would hit so close to home. I informed dear hubby that it was 13.1 for a half marathon, and no, it wasn't a bible verse, and found peace in the fact that my darling daughter got it. Well, probably not the half marathon part but she did know it was a running thing!