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March 2, 2008
back to what almost used to work
A little less harrumphy today. This morning I went up to the hills of St Leo with some friends I haven't run with a long time. Albert, with his northern-European sense of precision, told me "I will pick you up between 4:55 and 5:00am" so I awoke while the clock still said 3-something to get some sin leche in me and await his arrival at 4:57:30. He got here at 4:43, with our friend Mary Ann in tow. We got to St Leo in plenty of time for our 5:30 rendezvous with another friend, and set off in the lovely cool predawn. Our 8-mile loop included 4 fairly serious hills - actually, any hill is serious to us - and pointed out our various strengths and weaknesses. I tended to fall back on the downhills, catch up on the flats, and run ahead on the ups. Interesting.
We ran 2 loops pretty damn steady, around 7:57 pace. I wasn't totally spent at the end but it was a nice hard-ish medium-long run (I cannot fail to note that two months ago this would've felt incredibly easy). This 16-miler was my first non-solo run of any appreciable length in over a month, and my longest run since before the marathon. It reminded me of other, long-ago Sundays when my friends and I would meet and run together while working toward our often-separate goals. The familiarity, as well as the working-toward part, makes me a little calmer than I was yesterday.
Posted by joe positive at March 2, 2008 7:17 PM
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Comments
Getting in a longer run had to help with the impending sense of doom that comes with the fear that you won't be ready for an upcoming marathon. I've been freaking out a little because I hadn't gotten in a 20 miler yet, and since I did it this weekend it's SUCH a monkey off my back.
As for the slump, I hear ya. It's so hard to read those fitness tea leaves and try to decipher what it is you are or aren't doing that's keeping the magic from happening. More miles and risk fatigue, more speed and risk injury, more...cowbell? who knows.
Glad to hear the professional realm is on an upswing though. Don't underestimate how much all the different parts of your life affect the others. Maybe your psychic energies will get the message that THAT part of your house is in order now and will get back to helping you get your race times back where you'd like them.
Posted by: chelle at March 3, 2008 2:35 PM