Preparation For Pre Friday Eve Intervals!

Almost the weekend right? Yesterday evening was the last gymnastic class for the summer for my tot. Now she was in a pretty sensitive mood all day, but this was one of the few happy moments she had, and I don't know that I will ever experience this much fun:

If I had drafted the intro to this blog last night, this section would be filled with fear of a DNS for today or altering my interval day to a gentle run.  My left hamstring and groin were tight again in the evening, after not bothering me all day.  I iced, stretched, and some massages. But I didn't, and neither of two things happened.  I woke up feeling normal again.

Woke up at 4am. Drank my coffee, wait 30 minutes, and I was out the door. I had checked the weather and saw T-storms predicted at 5:45, so I put my phone in a ziplock bag (storm never happened).

Pretty muggy out, GPS picked up fast, and I went on me way. Plan for the day, 2.5 mile warm up 6 x 800 meter intervals, then cool down until I hit 10 miles. My first mile is always unpleasant as my body is still waking up and each part of my body spends a couple minutes calling me a jerk and saying they want to rest. Shut up, I didn't ask you your opinion, NOW PREFORM!

 I met up with ever famous Ruminator and we did a few warm up miles together before we parted ways for our own work out needs for the morning.

Now just a note about using +Endomondo for intervals. The Pro's: You can make whatever interval plan you want, it is easy to set up, and pretty accurate. The Con's: If you are hung up on times to the second, you'll likely get frustrated, as you are at the mercy of your GPS accuracy. Even on a good day, you will be a few meters off, which can be a couple seconds. On a normal day, maybe more or make you look faster. Another mental hang up you may experience, not knowing how close the end is.  This may be big for people that give it a last hard kick for the last 100 meters or so.  Hopefully not knowing where the end is helps you mentally stay strong with the speed.  With that, my times were pretty close. I felt the humidity hit my lungs after a few intervals and breathing got a bit harder. Whenever I felt any signs of an ache, I tried to take a step off to make sure I didn't go in the danger zone for a strain.

On the way back I was praying for the rain or a storm to cool off, but that never happened. Although I did get home looking like I went swimming.

The gnats were out in force again today.  The gnat party bus was parked heavily by the golf course.  They fully took out one lady running in front of me, she had to stop completely to clear out her eyes and mouth.  I imagine the gnats look forward to a glorious death every day. Much like the Sontarans:
We stare into the face of death! (Click me)

And one photo of the beach before I headed home:

Have a great day!