Hallucinations

It's only been a couple of weeks since I started to understand the whole 'key workout' thing. Due to various scheduling things with work I haven't been getting them in all that regularly, which is ok because I don't officially have to start The Plan for another week or so. (Before which time I should probably finish planning The Plan, no?) What I have managed to get in is several speed interval sessions and some scattered introductory outdoor runs.

So yesterday, when I finally made it in for the endurance workout on my schedule, I wasn't expecting anything to have changed.

All I can say is: Ho. ly. Shit.

I officially had my very first real Zone 2 endurance session, with actual running! No walking, no slowing down to walk, no getting frustrated with my soaring heart rate. It was easy. It was GREAT. And I didn't want to stop running. Ever.

I should credit the Joel Friel book I just finished - Total Heart Rate Training. It helped me figure out better where my Zones are, and showed me the reason I couldn't keep my Zone 2 workout at a 140 like everyone else's seems to be is that 140 is Zone 1 for me. I know everyone's different, but I guess I had a hard time accepting my HR is easily 20-30 BPM faster than y'alls. Hopefully that will continue to improve along with everything else.

So, yeah. My endurance workout. I paced it at 14:40, any faster and the HR wasn't steady. One of my friends stopped by to chat when I was running and about fell over when she saw I'd been running for over 40 minutes. She actually said "BUT... your face isn't red. And you're talking fine!"

(Which should tell you a little bit about what a complete disaster I've always looked when I run. Remember my story about the old guy who came over once when I was running and told me to be careful of my heart? Yeah. I've seen women in hard labor look better than me running.)

I'd gone into it planning for 30 minutes. But I've been freaking out pretty badly about the idea of running for over an hour at the 8K in 4 weeks... and don't get me started on the sheer terror I've been feeling about the impossible idea of running for 3 hours in 5 months. So I kept running beyond my plan, because I suddenly had a burning need to see how long I could keep it up.

45 minutes. Of running. Without a red face. Breathing easy. Chattin' with a girlfriend. Pretty steady HR (160s). Feelin' good.

I guess what I'm trying to ramble is this: I can see it.

Just like all my new goals, I signed up before I could see it and forced yourself to have faith in the training to come. It's always scary, I always doubt myself, and it generally takes me many, many months of showing up for the hard work before the Training Gods gift me with a vision of success.

So you could say I'm more than a little flustered that yesterday, before my training has even officially begun, I had the vision. I felt not just the possibility inside me - I felt the ability. Now I can see running for an hour. Or 3. Or even 5, someday. (Someday being October 2008, if you're keeping track).

Last year was supposed to be The Year of Running, but the Injury Gods conspired against me. Now I see that I wasn't ready for this last year. It was good I had to wait, because it appears the Training Gods have awarded my patience with even bigger blessings.

(Now, let's see about finding the vision of 8 hours on a bike...)