If you're goin through hell, keep on goin . .

24 days till race day, and last night I already had my first weird dream about running and those horrible letters DNF (did not finish). My stomach feels like the race is tomorrow morning.
Being a new week it was time to take a step up in the sauna training so today I took in a pen and paper to write a bit to try to take my mind off the heat. I learned two things.

1) Pens work really well in the sauna because the ink is hot and flows smooth
2) Pens do not work really well in the sauna because your paper is drenched with sweat

Anyhow, writing a bit did help to take my mind off things for the first 30 minutes and then I moved from the top shelf to the lower shelf for the last 17 minutes which mentally was very relieving. For anyone not familiar with sauna, there are generally two rows of seats, one is high and one low. The high seats are much hotter than the lower ones.
Following the sweat, I headed to McComas and did a run walk run combo of 4 miles, 1 mile, and 5 miles respectively. The first 4 miles I ran at an 8.5 mph pace, walked the 5th mile at a 4 mph pace, ran the 5-7 mile at a 7 mph pace, 7-9 at a 9 mph pace, and finished the last mile at 10 mph.

The pace changes were not a pre-thought out schedule yet I ended up getting into a race against the clock on the treadmill. I got to the hour mark on my run and was at 6.9 miles, my goal for the day was 10 miles. Knowing I can finish a 5k in 20 minutes, I challenged myself to finish under 80 minutes. About mile 8.2 rolled around and I hit a wall, "oh just walk for a minute", "the gym doesn't close for another hour, you'll definitely finish your 10 miles", "legs are feeling pretty tired right about now, this is a quick pace, you deserve a rest", "it's not the race, this is training, so why try your hardest right now, just take a little break", GET OUT OF MY MIND SHEDEVIL! I kept up, thought through it for a second and broke right on through it on the premises of whats another 13 minutes running, at least its not 13 more minutes in the sauna. Sprinting through the last mile with the treadmill at top speed ( I think at least 3 people were waiting for me to trip and sail right off the thing) I finished in 79:54, satisfaction.

Total on the day -

Sauna -47 minutes
Distance - 10.0 miles
Time - 79:54
Calories - 1405