Encircled by rain, circles in the rain

RUN 5.1 miles in 38 mins, 7x 800

Total session was 58 mins and 6.3 miles, we walked half laps between the 800s.
All 800's were sub 4 mins! As before, the pace was just under 7 if counter-clockwise and closer to 7:20 when clockwise. All felt good :)

Puppy is still "in the shop", it was dark and cloudy, so instead of riding Frea to the track I drove. In the end this turned out to be a good idea since the ride home would have been a rainy mess, and most off my commuter lights are with Puppy. Should get Puppy back in a day or two. Overhauled, it sounds like. Anyway.

Got to the track before BE, who also drove in after voting, and my warm-up felt good but I wasn't sure I had the legs for a serious workout. Yet I felt good. And I had no inspiration for a workout, should we do ladders? Yassos? Up ladder, down ladder? Just didn't have a great idea, not sure if I can blame having travel all day yesterday or the loss of momentum from a rest day or the fatigue of less sleep? Anyway.

BE suggested 800s and I was happy with it. When I asked how many, and he said 7, I had a moment in my head of "oh I can't do that". Oh damn, where does that come from?! Immediately I recognized it and recalled a podcast last week with the Navy SEAL who lived with a guy for 31 days (I've heard multiple interviews on this, great story) and the story starts with the SEAL taking him to the gym and saying "how many pull ups can you do", then rest 45 seconds, then do it again, rest, again, and the guy/author is fading out and this is how I remember it from memory but at some point the SEAL says "we're staying here until you do 100". Two plus hours later, he was done, and he learned in that session that he had to overcome the limiting beliefs that kept him from being able to do those things. I'm not really getting this out clearly, but I think the idea is clear. That our minds limits us, the beliefs we have keep us from achieving. Anyway.

I told myself to ignore that nagging thought and just run. And we rolled out 800s one after the other, they didn't get harder or slower, they were steady like they should be. Because I believed I could do them that way.

In about the 5th I noticed that we had rain to the east and to the west, we could see the long lines of falling rain. At the start of the 6th I realized I only had 2 more to go, not 3 (yay!). In the 7th we heard thunder. And for the 8th we had rain and thunder and lightning. In one of the first turns, BE swerved out a lane to avoid the sprinklers, LOL, and the other runners on the track were huddled under the bathroom shelters while we finished our last laps. Soggy and soaked, we finished feeling good.

The storms continued on and off for the morning though, and kept me from the pool. So still gotta get that done.

PT with JH -- new lunges! Calf raise, lean back slightly, then step out until a lunge starting with the heel, then down into hip flexor stretch, then stand straight up. Sounds so simple, but I kept losing my balance between the calf raise and step out. Mental battle. More limiters knocked down.