The Bee vs The Blerch, who won?

RUN 7 miles in 1:02, treadmilled
SWIM 2200y in 1:00-ish, 1x750 then 1x 700

Once again it's 1F degrees outside and my Thursday run group canceled. I'd already canceled myself out by the time the notification texts arrived. I knew Weds night, after thinking about my feet hurting all day and having gone 7 hours without eating in the afternoon that my energy wouldn't be into a run so freaking cold.

On top of that, I had more calf cramps overnight, these have been ongoing for a few weeks, and it left my lower left leg stiff and sore. It then occurred to me that these could be contributing the the pained arches (see yesterday's post) I'm experiencing. I stretched it out and thought about foam rolling. (thinking about it was as far as I got...I'm not big on foam rolling).

So off to the gym! My training plan had some boring 12x125y strides workout, not really workable for the 'mill, so I just did some random intervals at first before deciding on doing a few mile intervals at marathon goal pace. According to my marathon training plan, that's 8:11 m/m!! Can I do that??

Let's find out. I decided to do at least one mile at race pace, and since the treadmill doesn't do exact numbers I ended up with 8:03 m/m. This isn't a hard pace really, in the Thursday group run we'll average that pace! And my form and stride is better at these faster paces. But the mental energy to push through 8 boring minutes of effort is....ugh. HARD.

I did the one mile, rested a half mile, then did another at the next setting of 8:13m/m. And here's where I really started to mentally falter. I was pulling out motivational trick after trick, until I hit upon The Bee vs The Blerch halfway through this mile.

That fat little cake eating cherub was on the left side of the treadmill, floating alongside the display, telling me that I already did 1 mile this fast so why do I need to do another.

The Bee was buzzing near the right side of the display, telling me that if I ever want to improve I need to learn to push through it.

I mentally punched The Blerch and knocked him under a table along the wall. I envisioned fat little cake eating birds circling over his head. I finished the mile strong and even tacked on a few tenths to round up to 7 miles. The Bee won this round.

Off to the swim, where I lost momentum. I ate a box of raisins but apparently I need more than that! After a lingering shower I hit the deck (15 mins after the run!) and started the 400 WU. I changed the 6x50 as 2x(easy, med, fast) to alternating fulcrum drills. I was trying to build my steam back up to get into this swim. The MS was 2x750y, with the option to pull the 2nd one.

It wasn't working. I was flat, unmotivated, and uninterested. The two guys swimming alongside me were dropping me hard. I was using the Tempo Timer and sticking to the 1:05 time until I popped my right ankle out and lost focus. That's when I realized another potential reason for my arches to hurt--pushing off the wall!! (see yesterday's post).

This was all the more distracting as now suddenly I'm afraid to push off the wall. I tried drifting off the wall, using the floor, didn't matter. I fell off the 1:05 lap time and decided to alternate 100s/100p for the last 750y interval. This was barely working and I realized at one point that I'd shifted from being Determined to being Stubborn, another Bee Binary. I was suddenly dead-set on finishing this 750 regardless of the craptastic form I currently was using.

Until I saw SM during one of my drifting non-push tumble turns! I happily stopped to talk to her a few mins, ironic that I'm doing swimming with her and NK in just one month and here I am struggling through a swim...  I thought the stop would let me re-engage, but no. It didn't. I was done. I stubbornly pulled the last few laps up to 700y before calling it done at one hour.

Well I wouldn't characterize The Blerch as a stubborn mo-fo, so can I say he won this round?

Yesterday's swim is moved to tomorrow, so my goal for tomorrow is to get back on track and have an awesome swim!