Today was probably my most frustrating run so far this season. I got up early and went to go do my tempo run at a pond before we left to San Francisco. The loop around the pond was just a little longer than two miles long. I was feeling great to start. The warm up felt good and I was moving quick. After my warm up, I started my tempo minutes. I quickly got my pace down to a 6 minute pace and kept it there for about two miles. I was feeling great and barely hurting. I felt very focused as well. Unfortunately, when I came around the last stretch which was probably close to a quarter to a third mile long, I ran into a problem. As I was running, I started hitting walls of nats. So many that I was accidentally inhaling tons of them and couldn't see from how many were getting in my eyes. Everytime I breathed inhaled tons of them. It was terrible, but I figured I could tough it for a few seconds and get back on track. Sadly, they didn't stop. The whol last stretch, they just kept coming. This led to my pace slowing down dramatically and me losing focus. By the time I was finished with just the first lap, it had gotten so bad I kept getting them in my eye. Consequently, I had to stop at the end of the first loop to clear my eyes. I was totally covered, but luckily took only a few seconds to start again. From there I began pushing agains, but was having a way more frustrating time than earlier because I think I got thrown out of rhythm mentally a little bit and became nervous that I'd run into another stretch of them. My second lap I made sure not to run the last stretch but just keep flipping back and forth avoiding that stretch. Eventually I got my pave back to what it was, but by then my average had slowed due to the slow stretch with the mats and getting back into the tempo. I felt good about the portions of my run that were fluent though. My form felt good and above all I was relaxed. I ended with a 6:20 average for my tempo compared to our usual which is around 6:00. Although today was frustrating I still feel like I got a lot of take away from it. For one it showed me how important it is to have someone or a goal to go after when you're running for time. I noticed this because of how much harder it was to keep pace without being able to run with the other guys. It helps a lot when you're with a group. Also I think this helped me realize the importance of mental focus a little more. After I lost my focus today things started to fall apart a little bit. Next time I have an issue come up in a race or workout, I'm going to try my best to keep focused and not let it throw me off mentally. Although today was not perfect, I still felt pretty good about how things went especially with the setbacks and doing the workout by myself. Today was somewhat of a learning experience, and I hope it will help me keep a little more focused for workouts and races in the future.
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