Two eight-minute intervals: OWNED!

Well, it's a good thing I'm stubborn, because sheer force of will is the only thing that got me through the second interval today. When I woke up, it was gray and dark (thank you daylight savings!) and I absolutely wanted to stay in bed and continue sleeping. But I wanted to get my eight minute interval over with. I say "interval" because when I got up, I believed I was supposed to be running 5 minutes, walking, 8 minutes, walking, and five minutes again. Fortunately, I checked because I actually was supposed to be running two eight-minute intervals, with five minutes of walking in between. In the words of the cartoon, Cathy, "Ack!"

I kept telling myself I would nail the intervals, and I set off for my warm up walk. As I set the timer on my phone to eight minutes, I promised myself that on Friday, I would only set it to five minutes and just repeat that four times to meet my 20 minute mark. I think if I had to look at the timer counting down from 20, it would just be too depressing. Both Coach J, and my Twitter friend @kimokali said to look at it as running five minutes four times. Hopefully, that works, because let me tell you, my second eight-minute interval this morning was tough. And that was with a five minute walking break!

But all whining aside, the first eight minutes went a lot better than I thought they would. It was pretty warm when I got up (45 degrees) and the wind wasn't too big of a factor for a change. I felt pretty strong, though my legs still feel tight after two days of stretching and yoga. I may start to do some light yoga on my running days too, just to really stretch out my legs. And knowing that I'll be running for 20 straight minutes on Friday is a good motivator to try to finish strong with two eight-minute intervals. Tune in Friday to see how the 20 minutes goes. If you don't hear from me, please send someone to scrape my poor body off the side of Bayshore Drive here in Barnegat. Tell them to bring ice and Advil. And maybe some brownies...