Why does running a mile hurt so freaking bad??? - Grand Blue Mile 2017
For the 2nd year, I decided to give the Grand Blue Mile a go. Being someone who took on the sport of ultra running because I love running, but hate to run fast, running a mile as fast as you possibly can is a little counter intuitive. How bad can it REALLY be? I was fortunate enough to snag a free entry to the race from my employer for the 2nd time. When we were drawn it was during my 100 mile Rocky Raccoon hangover, but I needed something to train for that wasn't an ultra. I took a different approach to this event than I did last year and did focus on doing more tempo work leading up to the event. The tempo work tended to fall on the same day that I was doing 250-300 flights of stairs or being at a 15% incline on the treadmill for 60-90 minutes. This was going to attempt to train my legs to turnover when they felt dead. Leading up to the event, I haven't really been feeling encouraged by my distances of my runs. I've gotten some really good, hilly backroads 20+ miler