6!!!

I wasn't sure, when I started my workout today, if I was going to make an attempt at the elusive six-miles-in-an-hour. I just took three days off from working out (Friday was a planned off day, but Saturday and Sunday just sort of worked out that way because of my random weekend schedule...), and I was trying to decide if I wanted to do a kettlebell workout, or just walk for a while, or what. Plus, it was about 95 degrees here today, and quite warm and stuffy inside my condo (I had the A/C set at 78...). But I decided to at least go for a 5K run on the treadmill and then see how I felt...

I hit three miles at 30:52, and I realized, "hey, I only have to shave off 52 seconds in the next half hour to reach six miles." And since my first mile is always really slow (it's my "warm up" mile), I thought MAYBE I'd have a chance... Or at least I thought I might have a chance once Rick happened to walk by the treadmill and I asked him to lower the A/C temp to 76... (I would obviously not last long on an outdoor run in the summer...)

Besides, I had all my awesome Indian music queued up for the second half of my workout:

I was starting to really lose energy by the time I hit five miles, though, and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to reach my goal. Which sort of annoyed me. I can be a very competitive person at times. At least when it comes to competing against myself. And once I decided I was going for that six miles, nothing less was going to work. I got to 55 minutes and I still had a half mile left... so I sighed a big, exhausted sigh and decided to just see if my tired legs could keep going. And then, at some point, I looked at the treadmill display and realized that I was running at an 8-minute pace, that I had ONE lap left to go, and that I had just over two minutes to finish it. Using my exemplary math skills (hey, why didn't anyone tell me there would be math on the treadmill??), I told myself that all I had to do was maintain my pace for that ONE last lap, and I'd have my six miles...

Of course, this was the point when my body decided it HAD to have one last drink of water... water, posthaste! Water, forthwith!! And I have still not mastered the art of drinking water while running -- I always have to slow to a fast walk, otherwise I'm sloshing water everywhere. So I slowed down, took one last quick drink, and then just went as fast as I could... I could tell it was going to be REALLY close... and just as I started questioning the wisdom of that last drink of water, I finally crossed the six-mile mark... at 59:58.

Yeah! I did THIS many! (Yep, I'm a weirdo...)

I promised myself new perfume when I reached this goal (it's better than promising myself, say, a couple dozen cupcakes... or a Ghirardelli sundae every week for the rest of the summer...), so I'll be surfing Sephora's website to see what looks good. I guess 6.25 miles in an hour is my next goal... and THEN I'll eat a Ghirardelli sundae every week for the rest of the summer...

Just kidding. Maybe... :)

By the way, this is what Riff was doing the entire time I was on the treadmill:

(I just washed those sheets... he likes to burrow into freshly washed laundry...) It's good to know I wasn't the only one who was working hard...