Running With John

One of the best things about the Texas Iron workouts is having friends to push you harder than you want to go. It's funny what we 'enjoy' sometimes.
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Last night's workout was a good one for me. I went to practice with the goal of trying to push myself during practice. Pushing during the shorter workouts is one of the toughest things for me. Now that we're getting closer to CDA I really have to focus on pushing hard during the interval workouts. Andrea has been doing a good job encouraging this by advising me to push hard at the rookie and reminding me that I need to go to a new place... one of pain.
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This concept of pain is a bit daunting to me. I feel like I can go on for hours and hours but the idea of willingly putting myself into a harder zone scares me a bit.
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The workout for last night: 10 min warm up run then 2 x ( 2 x 1 mile with 2:00 rest , 1 x .5 mile with 2:30 rest). Just after getting the assignment from Jamie John told me he'd be pacing off me. Translation: I'm going to stick to your heels on the flats and crush you on the hills. John is about the same speed as me on flats but his hill running is something from a completely different world. I mere 5% grade will send me into anaerobic pain if I try to keep up with him. That is exactly what happened... John stuck to my feet and pushed me to my limits.
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Okay, so there is a bit more to that story... John pushed me for 2/3 of the workout but then I had to make an emergency stop at the bathroom and did the last mile and .5 mile alone. This is when determination set in. I told myself I was going to hit the same times I'd done with John. I hit the mile split. Then I told myself I needed to beat the .5mile time... I got it by 3s. Might not sound like a big deal but it certainly was for me. I'd pushed hard to keep up with John and managed to push myself just as hard at the end of practice.
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Result: Happy, tired, and very glad that John had been at practice to kick my booty to where it needed to be