I dreaded this one all week. Two hours, full range — easy base with surges up to HM effort, then 10K effort, then 5K effort mixed in. The kind of workout where you know exactly how bad it's gonna hurt before you even start.
Decided to run it outside instead of the treadmill. My buddy Brian tagged along, and we both got our asses kicked.
Packed a cooler with ice and drinks and staged it along the route so I could stop during the easy blocks, refuel, and pack some ice on myself. Sounds like a small thing but it actually helped a lot.
Hit some good numbers because of it. HM effort came in around 7:45, 10K around 7:20, 5K around 6:50, and on that last 3-minute rep I was down around 6:30 and still had a little left in the tank. Garmin didn't sync the alerts well this morning so I was tracking the splits manually — one more thing to deal with, but not the thing that mattered. Treadmill thresholds are paying off.
But honestly the workout isn't really the point of this one.
Somewhere in the middle of it I started thinking about how running is a privilege. Not in a cheesy way — just, it's a hobby nobody really cares about, and it's also something not everybody gets to have. Some people don't have the time. Some people are dealing with things that make it impossible — we've got family members going through some really hard, traumatic health stuff right now. And here I am, able-bodied, with a cooler in the driveway, mad at a workout, and a buddy dumb enough to join me.
So even on the days this is hard — and this one was hard — I'm grateful we get to do this. And grateful for the family that lets me.
