Fitness Friday: Spatula Runners 10K

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So like most things in life, I waited until the last minute to enter my time and photo into Ali's Spatula Runners 10k, and seeing as I am just getting over this cold, and it is blowing 18 mph w/ 38 degree weather, I opted for the treadmill.

Now I almost always am slower on the treadmill, but add on the fact that I haven't comfortably run faster than an 8:20 in the past month anyways, and you could imagine the pain, fatigue and accelerated heart rate I battled to get through this.

I could harp on the fact that I really didn't feel strong and that it was my all time slowest 10k race (whether or not it was in real life or online), but instead I am going to smile and perhaps do a spatula fist pump, just for getting through this.

I ran a 0.55 mile warm up in about 5 minutes, did a quick stretch (my right hip and knee have been sore as heck lately) and got right to it.  There was a yoga class at 6:30 that I wanted to make it to, and knew I had to be speedy to get it done in time.  I put the treadmill at a 0.7% incline (which equals a flat road) and pumped the speed to 7.4 (which is usually my recovery pace for intervals!) and settled in.  The plan was to raise that speed every half mile - mile, but it took the first mile to get comfortable enough to up it to 7.5.  I hung out at 7.5 for the next 2.2 miles, and knew I had three more miles to get through.  I was hurting and it was tough breathing.  I was dripping sweat and could feel myself over-heating, but I kept on going.

At about 4 miles, I seriously considered stopping at 5.65 miles and just tacking on my warm up time to make the 6.2 miles, but I knew that was cheating/easy way out - so I quickly squashed that thought.  I did, however, turn the speed down to 7.3 - and was still struggling.  I turned the machine up to 7.6 as I closed in on 5 miles and told myself I was going to really push myself to speed up and finish strong.

I upped it again to 7.8 at about the 5.5 mile mark, and was sure I would be able to make it all the way to 6.2, but my legs had other plans and I had to knock the speed back down to a 7.3 to finish up 6 miles, I pumped it back up to 7.8 and sprinted in (my sprint is usually a 9.5 on the tready!) the final 0.2. I finished up the 10K in a 50:45 and a smile for pushing through despite some set backs.

I walked the final .25 cool down, and finished the evening with a perfect 7 miles and still made it to the yoga class without being obnoxiously late, score! The whole time I was running and yoga-ing, I was thinking about this Cinnabon Cake I wanted to make for Tripp, since he is going to be coming home while I am flying out so I won't be able to see him for another week, and he finished his final day (of 12 weeks!) in Oregon today - so I wanted to leave him something special.

I also thought, what better way to get my photo in for Ali's Spatula Runners Photo contest!

I ran to the kitchen, grabbed the spatula and got to it - no time for showers!

There will be no write up on the final product, because needless to say - I screwed it up somehow! There were two and a half sticks of butter and 3 cups of sugar, so maybe it is better it came out crappy? I still tried to eat some of it that was dripping in the excess butter...it was seriously a pool of buttery oil on the top layer, nothing like the delicious looking pick on the site - wonder what went wrong?
---------------------------------------------------------------Did you take part in Ali's contest? It ends today, but she has some pretty great prizes up for grabs!!