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May 10, 2006
Building Strength
I never cease to be amazed by (and grateful for) how quickly my fitness starts to come back. I think that is part of what keeps me coming back... to running. There is an element of instant gratification: one week of steady running and lifting and I already feel evidence of my work paying off. At the same time, all the little breakthroughs are only data points on the journey to the ultimate goal.
Running is feeling comfortable again, and I've graduated to the 15-lb. dumbbells in the weight room. I'm still galumphing along, but I'm galumphing a little faster than I had been. Today, when I hit the point where I usually turn around on my hour-long out-and-back, I still had a minute to go and I wasn't working as hard as I have been of late. I figured that I had the wind at my back and was worried that I might end up postive-splitting the run (my goal is always to negative-split my out-and-backs), but when I turned around I discovered that wasn't the case. The wind was doing something (I never quite figured out what), but it wasn't in my face. I actually ended up negative-splitting the run by a minute. Yes, fitness is returning.
I think that tomorrow I'll have to go in the other direction on my out-and-back to discourage racing myself. I just can't help it: if I run in the same direction tomorrow that I ran in today, I will have to go further than I did today. I also need to quit eyeing the 20-lb. dumbbells. So tempting, but completely antithetical to what I'm trying to accomplish, as a long distance runner, with my lifting.
Posted by alweiss at May 10, 2006 11:10 PM