Faith

I woke up to a downpour and it hasn't really stopped. I've been paying close attention to the weather this week, because I'm scheduled to run 20 miles on Sunday. I decided with today's rain, I would take it inside to the treadmill for my track workout.

On the menu: 8X800 repeats with new shoes. Here's how it played out:

2 miles slow warmup. Treadmill set at 2%; 10:54/mile. As I was running, I realized that if I ran my whole marathon at this pace, I'd finish well under 5 hours.

Treadmill set at 1% grade:
6X800 at 8:34/mile (4:17) with .25 intervals
2X800 at 8:49/mile (4: 25) with .25 intervals

.5 mile cooldown. 88 minutes to finish the whole thing.

If you didn't like Hanson, you'd be happy to hear that today's workout was heavy with Led Zeppelin, but the song that got me through the last 800... the one where I was ready to hang it up.... quit early... was Faith by George Michael. How perfect. A song called Faith comes on just when I'm ready to give up.
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I'm feeling nervous and unconfident just as I always do the weeks I have to run 20 miles. It's like it is a constant presence, looming in the distance. A big question mark. Will I be able to do it? I'm planning on going to the bike trail where I'll have to run 10 miles out and 10 miles back. It takes out the guesswork and I will have no choice but to finish. There's no other way back to my car and no one can come get me. It sounds ominous, but it's heavily travelled. I've only heard of one woman being attacked on the trail. Maybe I should bring a whistle. I just don't trust myself on any route that goes near my house after last weekend.