HONESTLY

It’s nice to get a comment or email from someone saying they think my fitness is improving. Usually I don’t believe them, but honestly, I feel like I’m starting to come around. A month ago I felt slow and out of shape and was kind of wondering why. Sure I was coming off of a sub-par Boston, but had my fitness really dropped so much since early in the year? Now I’m glad I’m not super fit right now. What would I do with it, as the marathon is still like 11 weeks away?

I ran another tempo workout this morning that ended up being 12 miles in 1:28. This one consisted of the following;

2 mile warm-up
20:00 at tempo
4:00 easy
15:00 T
3:00 E
10:00 T
2:00 E
5:00 T
1+ mile cool-down

I seemed to be hitting quicker splits for this workout, running closer to 6:25 pace – on average. There are 3 things that I attribute that to; 1) I made a conscious effort to only focus on the tempo portion that I was running at that moment – rather than worry how I’d feel for that last 5:00 tempo when I was still running the first, 2) I thought about Ryan Hall’s QOD from Monday regarding pain management, and 3) I thought about Adam’s comment about just going for it and trusting that I am able to run the paces that Daniels suggests.

It seems I must have done something right because the paces were quicker and even the gal at the coffee shop said I looked pretty tired when I finished my run – more than normal, I guess.

Quote of the day – for Eric;

“I remember someone asking the great pole vault champion, Bob Richards, how high did he think he would have vaulted with a fiberglass pole, rather than the non-bending pole of his era. He said he would probably sprint down the runway, plant the pole, pull and twist and jump the same height as he was jumping with the non-bending pole.” - Dan Conway, when asked if he regretted not running in his prime