Where My Fitness (Or Lack Thereof) Is

So the other B challenged me a while back to do a 2 mile time trial in order to start doing some "speed work" in hopes of recovering some of what I've lost in the last few years. I've been putting it off for a long time. Mainly because of the running hiatus, general fatigue, soreness, racing, blah blah blah, I have an excuse for everything.

I wanted to find a nice track to do my run on. Apparently all the tracks near me are crap. First, A and I headed to the high school. We quickly nixed that location since there seemed to be some sort of Little League football practice happening. Drove down the street to the middle school and it was deserted.

I *KNOW* I am slower. However, I had it in my head that I could get this run done. I texted Heather my goals:

1. Don't die
2. Don't puke
3. Finish under 21-22 minutes (What)

So. Even though it was a balmy 88 degrees, there was a slight breeze and it was sort of overcast. So... I am horrified even typing this. The first 3 loops or so went ok, I wasn't looking at my watch so I wasn't sure of effort. Everything felt ok. Then the leg fatigue and cramping started. For the next 2-3 loops I took walk breaks. I WALKED IN A TIME TRIAL. WTF, ME?? Somewhere around the 6th loop I started jogging/running and I managed at least the last half mile or so without any additional walking. I'm shocked and sad at how awful an actual attempt at speed work actually went. 2 miles done in 21:58. I crashed and burned, the first mile (even with walking) was 10:37 and the second was about 11:21. That is an average of an 11 minute mile. AS SPEED WORK. How on earth did I ever run sub 2 half marathons??

So. THAT was discouraging. A leaves this weekend for her visit with her Dad in Texas, so I promised her one last bike ride before she leaves. I may only cycle once a week (our average ride is about 2 miles), but I just LOVE my "Ride Colorful Colorado" Pearl Izumi bike jersey.

I (idiotically) decided to round out my workout for the day by doing yet another one of those Fitness Blender videos that Kim is trying to kill us with. (Why? Why do you hate us??) I barely made it through both rounds. This 39 minute barre workout is NO JOKE.

And then, I could barely get out of bed this morning. HOW HAVE I NEVER EXERCISED SO MANY MUSCLE GROUPS EVER???

Once I get past the nearly dying part of doing these videos I'm pretty happy that I have tried them. OBVIOUSLY I need some strength training. Anyone else tried this one? Was it hard? Am I just the weakest person on Earth?

Thoughts:

• I really have my work cut out for me if I am going to work on this whole "speed" thing. I'm not going to lie. I am super discouraged already. But I guess there's pretty much nowhere to go but up?
• I am going to try to find a new route for A and I to ride by the time she gets back. There has to be a safe way to get to the bike path a few miles down the road.
• I am going to try to do at least a few of these (horrible and rotten) Fitness Blender videos every week. If nothing else, it gives me some variety to my workouts.