dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

I don't know it it was something that I ate, or if my body just shut down because I haven't gotten much sleep lately, (probably a combination of the two) but I woke up feeling like garbage this morning.  I couldn't function at all, and on top of it I was super congested (change in weather?) and had a headache and a stomach ache.  After making a few attempts to get going and failing miserably I finally decided to call in sick and stay home.  So, I slept all morning and by evening the stomach ache went away (but not until after I had finished my run).  I kept the run easy, finishing 11.1 miles in 1:23:25 with a standing vpb in the middle where I didn't stop my watch.

I slept so much yesterday that I had trouble falling asleep at night, but I felt fine today.  I ran 10 miles, getting in the first few miles with the cross country team, and then finishing up on my own.  I finished in 1:14:57.

I ran with Sasha this morning. We took our run really slow as we were discussing discrimination and whether or not straight men should be allowed to form civil unions if gay men (or women) are allowed to. We accidentally passed our mark so I think that we ran farther than 7 miles, but not by much. We finished our run in 58:45.

In the evening I ran another 6.25 miles alone in 48:56.  Nothing special to report. 

Today I ran with the cross country team.  After a warm-up we ran 5x800 with 200 recovery plus some standing around (about 2:30 for the recovery).  We took it out pretty slow, and got through the first repeat in 2:40.  This was followed by a 2:32, 2:23 (short by about 10 seconds or so) 2:33, 2:27.  I just stayed with the top guys on the team on all of them except the last, and on that one I was still trying to keep the distance close, so I wasn't going all out.  We ran all of them on grass, with some winding trails mixed in on a few of them.  After this I talked with some of the guys for a while before running approximately 8.75 miles home from the high school in 1:04:15.  I guessed the mileage based on maps, and mileage markers that are on the road so I think I am pretty close.

I took it pretty easy today.  I ran up hobble creek canyon for five miles, and then ran back down to the high school.  I finished in 1:18:36.

todays run was really kind of weird.  I started the run with the intention of holding about 7:00 pace and maybe speeding up to as fast as 6:40 pace.  I did not feel up to running a long tempo like I have been lately.  Instead, my first mile was under 7:00 and I felt like I was holding back.  After that, I averaged between 6:10 and 6:27 for the next 8+ miles until I made a turn around so that I could end at 15 miles for the day.  The whole time I really just felt like I was cruising.  I didn't feel like I was pushing the pace at all.  When I turned around, I decided that when I hit my next turn around in two miles I would run a two mile tempo just to see how it felt.  The next thing I know, I have sped up unconsciously and I run a 6:02 mile, followed by a 6:03.  I still felt like I was not even trying to push the pace at all.  So, when I hit my last turn around a little over 11 miles into my run I really turned it on, and I went flying back down the river trail.  It was dark, so it made it harder to judge speed, but I was able to catch my mile times.  I hit the first mile in 5:16.  It still felt relatively easy.  I could tell that I was pushing the pace, but I felt like I could sustain that pace forever.  The last mile was a 5:12.  This mile was really odd because it felt comfortable, but I felt like I couldn't really speed up.  Every time I tried to speed up I did and it did not feel like it was too hard to speed up, but I felt like I really needed to focus hard in order to do so, and I couldn't focus hard enough to maintain the speed.  It was very odd, and I don't really know why I couldn't maintain the speed when I went faster and I couldn't concentrate hard enough to do it.  I finished my run with about 2 more miles after this, and made it back to my house running 15.1 miles in 1:34:48.