Punishment

Thursday, when I fly out to Vegas (less than 48 hours away whooooooooooo), will be the first day in almost two weeks that I'll take a day off from a hard workout.
Most of those days were filled with running, through snow, up hills and at sweat-inducing speeds, even in the bitter cold that's blanketed my state.
Today was one of the toughest workouts. I took part in a running analysis at the University of Northern Colorado. It's a biomechanical running study at UNC, and I volunteered because I'm only in my fourth year of running, like, ever, and as a result I've never had much coaching beyond what my friends tell me and whatever advice our leader can give me in between watching 40 other runners during our track workouts.
So I'm pretty excited to get some tips on my form.
I think that's where I am right now. I can't really train much harder than I am, given my three little kids. I could watch my diet more, but I'm fairly lean as it is. I could sleep more, but that's up to my girls, not me (and no, after 18 months, they are not sleeping through the night yet).
The trial was 10 three-minute intervals ran at a speed a little faster than a tempo run. He wanted me to run at a "6" on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the hardest. For me that was eight miles an hour, or about a 7:30-per-mile pace (I think; I hate math). On the third minute, he would put the treadmill at an incline, and either I was supposed to run through it or tell the guy to back off until I was running at the same effort when the treadmill was flat.
My light shirt was soaked at the end of the trial, especially after the last two, when he bumped the treadmill up to 15 degrees. That may not sound like much, but it was brutal, trust me. It was all I could do not to fall off it.
My reward for the hard work will be an hour (!) of analysis about my form and other tips on how to improve as a runner.
I'm all for it. Anything I can do to avoid feeling like I do right now will be welcome.
Really the only thing that will help with that is rest, and I'll get plenty of that in Vegas.
Well, rest from running, anyway.