When lazy meets overly-ambitious....

It can be a bit of a mess. Unfortunately, this is the story of my life! (At least regarding running, and I fear it may apply in other areas as well.) For example, take this morning....

Alarm goes off at 5:15 a.m. I want to do at least 8 miles today! (Overly ambitious. Spoiler alert--8 miles doesn't happen.)

Hit the snooze button a few times till 6 a.m. (Lazy. But I intentionally set the alarm earlier than necessary to accommodate some snoozing.)

Turn on the light at 6 a.m. Read a little. Get a piece of toast with almond butter. I should get up by 6:15 or 6:20 to get outside by 6:30. (Overly ambitious? Actually quite reasonable, if it wasn't thwarted by LAZY.)

6:25 - oh, it's getting late. I'll get up at 6:30. (Lazy.)

6:35 - how'd that happen? (Lazy!)

6:45 - leap out of bed! I can still get most of my miles in! (Lazy plus overly ambitious.)

6:55...or 7:00... out the door, start Garmin.

I need to be at work by 9 a.m. So what would be a realistic distance to run, considering I have some stoplights on the way and always have a bathroom stop? Five miles makes sense, right? NO. Because I am OVERLY AMBITIOUS. Six miles is doable, even though I won't be done at 8 a.m....

I can tell you right now, when I plan to do six miles I won't stop until I hit 6.2 or 6.25. And if there's any way to round up to 6.5 or seven miles, I will do it. (Overly ambitious.)

This would all be a lot easier if weren't in the middle of a slump in which my legs refuse to obey my mind and don't really want to run much faster than 11 minute pace. Well, in the last couple days I have managed to average around 10:30 but that is with some effort. My sluggishness is a topic for another post (and I am not attributing it to laziness), but suffice to say that 6-7 miles takes longer to complete at a 10:30+ pace than it does at sub-10 pace. Three or four minutes may not seem like much but it is significant in the tight schedule I have created for myself in the mornings. You would think that the time crunch stress would make me run faster but it's not happening right now.

So how many miles did I complete on this lazy but overly ambitious morning? 7.3.  Never mind that I didn't get to Starbucks until almost 8:30 a.m. Never mind that thunder and lightning started rumbling at about 8:25, and halfway home (walking with coffee) the sky opened up and dumped giant raindrops on me. Never mind that by the time I was in my house I had fifteen minutes until I should have been at work! I got my 7+ miles in. (Never mind that it was significantly less than the 8-10 miles I overly ambitiously had in mind last night.)

How do you get ready and get to work in 15 minutes? Well, you don't. I was embarrassingly late (about 9:15). Still, I got ready in less than 20 minutes. I threw myself in the shower for a one-minute rinse. I didn't wash my hair (it was damp from sweat and even damper from the rain). I blew my hair dry, threw on my clothes, brushed my teeth, grabbed my breakfast and coffee (brought from Starbucks) and drove to work. Luckily it's less than two miles from my house, and I didn't run down any pedestrians on the way.

I have the will to run, I just don't have the will to get myself out of bed early enough. Maybe next week....