Another 5 miles, post Spin Class.

This morning Chris and I made it to the 8:30am Spinning class at the gym.  I just love that class. Our instructor is awesome (tough) and I sweat buckets.  It's like a purging of sorts.  My heart rate stays up above 165-175 for the whole hour - and that's a great workout.  After spin class, I did 30 minutes of weight lifting.  Chris spotted me, and he has also been tracking in a notebook where I'm at with my weights.  Today I went up on several, including the bench press, lat pull and tricep pull downs.  After that, I got on a treadmill and ran for an hour, getting in a little over 5 miles.  It was tough, considering my legs always feel like Jell-O after spinning.

5.5 miles.

A couple of weeks ago, I read the book "Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an all night runner" by Dean Karnazes.  I would definitely recommend this book to any runner (or anybody, for that matter) looking for a little inspiration.  This guy is crazy.  His stamina for long distance running is unmatched.  And while you read his words and think to yourself, "I could never do that!", it's still motivating to think that it's possible.  Really, anything is possible with hard work and dedication.  He went from just a regular, average 30 year old guy, to the guy who has run innumerable ultramarathons, most of which were 100+ miles.  I also found a documentary on DVD and ordered it through Netflix called "Ultramarathon Man: 50 days, 50 states, 50 marathons."  Seriously.  Phew.  Anyway, we watched that on Saturday evening and I think I'll watch it again.  Another motivational story.  What an amazing person he is, and one that through reading his book and watching him on film, you feel like is just a regular, down to earth type of guy, who just doesn't stop until he's completed his goals.  Even then, he just keeps running...

So, this morning I began my day with 20 minutes of Pilates before I even took the kids to school.  After I dropped them off, I headed outside for a run.  I did an out and back totaling 5.5 miles.  It was really windy, and I had a serious headwind the entire way back to the house, so I was surprised to see from my Garmin that I had an average pace of 10:37 min./mile.  When I got home I fixed a nice bowl of hot oatmeal with blueberries and almonds and after eating, I got on the bike for an hour.  It's kind of nice that I can scootch the bike right up to the computer desk and do my online things while I pedal away. :)