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May 21, 2005
titles are a drag
(first): thanks to the people who said nice things about that sorta-5k last week that I won. I've said this time and time again, but it's true: it's really cool that people I don't know take time to read this thing and comment and cheer on the good and commiserate with the bad.
Things at work are slowly returning to normal, and I'm starting to feel like I have a life again. I don't have to work at all this weekend if I don't want to, and so far I don't want to. On the other hand, I haven't really taken full advantage of the decreased stress. I increased my mileage a little this week - up to 59, whoohoo - but practically all of it was easy running. Instead of going to the club's track workout Tuesday, I ran 7 miles around the neighborhood with 8 x 100m strides in the middle. Since I was planning to run a 5k this weekend, I took it easy on Thursday too. Then last night I decided I wasn't in the mood for 5k pain, so I bagged the race this morning and ran 10 with some little hills.
Back in late December when I started running again after the stress fracture, my easy-run pace was dismayingly slow and I got all freaked out about it and wrote whiny emails to my coach and just about anyone else who would listen. Even sub-9 seemed like both a long-lost memory and an unattainable goal. As I trained more, my pace got better, but was still decidedly slow. When I got back from Boston I noticed that easy runs were faster, but I chalked it up to reduced mileage and fresher legs. The pace got faster still, but I figured the GPS was screwed up and giving me suspect readings. This week I finally decided to admit that yes, my easy pace is about 40s faster than it used to be. Progress!
Posted by joe positive at May 21, 2005 12:24 PM