Effort? What's effort?

Last night’s workout involved effort levels. I hate effort levels. For those of you that don’t know, an effort level is basically how hard your breathing, not necessarily how fast you’re running. In effort 4, you should be very out of breath and not very happy. Effort one is an easy recovery pace. For last night’s workout we went through all 4 levels, doing one minute on each level. The problem is I pretty much have one effort level- forward. I don’t usually try to challenge myself, and that’s what this workout was all about.

Since it was hot, I decided to take it a little easy. I quickly fell to the back of the pack. I’ve decided (just last night in fact) that I’m very fine with the back of the pack. I also came the realization that I’ll have to abandon all delusions of grandeur come race day. I’m not going to finish a marathon in under 4:30, which is secretly my desired goal time. I’ll be lucky to beat my last time. But no matter how hard I try, I’m just not as fast as I used to be. Sigh.

So I’m basically plodding along at the back of the pack, sort of dipping my toe into the world of effort levels. One of the coaches passes by and says my effort 2 looks a lot like an effort 1, and I should pick up the pace. My first reaction was to roll my eyes. It’s hot! I don’t want to run fast! But then I realized she was right. (Darnit. Why was she right?) I’ve been too easy on myself. I’m still struggling to find that perfect balance in my training where I’m challenging myself just enough, without getting hurt. I have a tendency to either take it way too easy, or go balls to the wall. There is no in between. But I wanted to try, so I kicked it up a notch. You never realize how long a minute is until you’re running an effort 4 on a 90 degree day with high humidity. I was drenched. And you know what? It wasn’t bad. I felt pretty good afterwards. Yay me!

So the lesson here? JUST TRY IT, DAMMIT!

In other news, don't forget to donate! I'm not just running around in circles sweating my butt off for fun. We're doing it because cancer sucks! You can help make all my sweat and blisters (and OH there are blisters) worth it! Donate here! Still $400 left to go before I reach my goal this month.