Motivation regained

Not only did I sign up for the races I mentioned the other day, I've signed up for a replacement for the Chicago Marathon; my training plan doesn't need to shift at all. The combination of having a solid goal in sight and pulling back slightly on my run on Thursday (where my body was telling me I was a bit too ambitious with a couple of recent runs) have definitely helped me mentally with today's long run. 

I didn't even consider running outdoors. By the time I left for the gym (~8am), it was already about 75F and very humid. There's no way I would have been able to keep up a 7:30 pace for 13 miles with how much both of those wound up climbing. But on the treadmill, it was particularly easy. My legs fully recovered, where earlier in the week my quads were screaming at me.

Some fun workouts coming up this week, to include a 10k time trial and some inclines on a few of the near-tempo runs. Where the 5k time trial I did a few weeks ago was outdoors on a track and I had to pay very specific attention to the pace I was running each lap, I'll be doing the 10k on the treadmill. While it will certainly be easier than if I were outside (either on the rolling hills of the W&OD Trail or dodging people walking (sometimes with a dog) on a 3-lane school track), doing a ~6:30 pace for the full 10k will definitely be a challenge nonetheless.