Sad Song (wt 18.75)

I haven’t posted since Monday, but I have been putting my time in on the roads, and even though the efforts have been varying, I am happy with how things are turning out.  I hope that I can stay with it and that I get back to where I was in the spring and then improve from there.

I tried to make up for the fact that I didn’t do intervals Monday evening by trying to balance my run on Tuesday (a 6 mile out and back) with recovery and effort.  It would seem a bit difficult, but it ended up being just a little faster than the pace Brian has listed as my easy/recovery run pace.  At the same time though, it’s hard to gauge how much recover my legs are really getting: I clocked in at about 8:08/mile (7:55 out and down, 8:20ish back and up), but my effort felt harder than I would suspect.  I do understand the benefit of running on a course with rolling hills, but I wonder how much it will prepare me for a race that I think of as mostly flat (ok, not really – I need to do some downhill training).

A part of me still wants to run the rolling hills (what?) despite the fact that I’m planning on running a downhill course.  I think I’m starting to get back into running for fun, and even though my goals are to improve my times and speed, a big part of me understands that I might be able to do that if I stopped thinking so much about concrete numbers, and more about improving how I feel while I’m out.

Which is why I’m happy with the past few runs.  After Tuesday’s moderate-easy 6 mile run, I found it in me to do both of my planned runs today (Wednesday).  The first was an easy 4 mile jog in the morning (which was really noon) while the second was some tempo work at the local high school.  After the first run, I remembered to do some stretching, which seemed to help prepare my legs for the second run later that night.  I’m trying to slowly readjust my workouts to match Brian’s plan for me, and tried to do some tempo work.  I also recalled Gretchen’s workouts that seemed to be aligned to the same goals, so I wanted to do something close to what she had us do, and remembered a 2X2mi piece at 10K pace with 10 min rest in between.  I modified the workout (during the first piece) and ended up doing 2 x 1.5 mi at 10K pace (6:52 and 6:48) and resolved to add another lap to each piece in that workout for a while and work on getting the pace down to at least what it was in the spring (6:40).

So, overall, I think my spirits are improving when it comes to my running.  I’m realizing that I would like to add both yoga and lifting to improve my flexibility and core strength, respectively.  I’ve been looking into some yoga classes around the island to try to get a head start before school starts (and I’ll just be able to take a class on campus for cheaper).

Anyway, the in case you were wondering what the title of this post had to do with anything, I submit the Jason Nevins’ remix of Blake Lewis’ Sad Song, which I have started listening to quite a bit while running: