dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

We had stake conference today.  Shayon threw up in the middle of it, but luckily Kimia was able to catch almost all of the vomit in Anita's blanket which she brought to keep Anita warm in the stroller on the walk to church.  The stake presidency has asked all of the members of the stake to evaluate whether they can give a more generous fast offering because our stake has been using more than it is bringing in.  I imagine that Kimia and I could donate a little more.

I ran 1.5 miles to school in the morning.  In the afternoon I ran home from school (3 miles) after which I dropped off my backpack and went back out to run 6.5 miles more (9.5 miles total).  Total time for the run ended up being 1:13:35.  I did not feel 100%, but it is the best I have felt since maybe last Monday (or possibly the week prior) so I ran 2 x 400 with 400 recovery just to get my legs moving a little faster.  I ran the first in 1:18, and the second in 1:21.  So nothing spectacular but it felt good to go fast for a little bit.

I ran 10 miles today in 1:17:02.  I felt pretty good today, but at times I felt a little awkward, almost like I was lacking coordination.  I ran home from school in the evening for an additional 1.5 miles.

In the morning I ran 1.5 miles to school, while in the evening I ran 3 miles home plus an additional 6.5 miles after getting there (9.5 miles in 1:16:17) for a total of 11 miles on the day

I ran 10 miles after school today in 1:19:47.  Nothing special happened, except I am starting to wonder if the stomach pain I have been having (it has been there even when I do not mention it on the blog although pain was minimal today) is a result of being sick, or if being sick just made the pain worse.  I wonder this because the pain has persisted all throughout this week despite not feeling sick anymore.  I am not quite sure what to make of it.  Passing gas seems to help things a bit, but only if I am constantly letting it rip the entire time I am running, and sometimes that does not even seem to help.  On some occasions it seems like the pain does not start until after I start running, while on other occasions the stomach pain will start up mid-day and is merely present while I am running.  My point in mentioning this is that I am not sure if the discomfort is caused by running or simply limiting me while I run.

I felt really tired today so I ended up breaking my run up into smaller chunks.  I ran 1.5 miles to school in the morning, followed by running another 1.5 miles home in the afternoon.  I was at home for a little while before running 7 miles more to finish up 10 miles on the day.  I ran a half mile at 6:00 pace near the end of the run because I wanted to get my legs moving.

The plan today was to run 12.5 miles at an average pace of 7:30-7:40 per mile.  I just did not feel in the mood to plod along at 8:00 pace today.  However, once I left the house that plan almost immediately went out the window.  I was not really trying to go faster but I started my run under 8:00 pace (I usually start slower and then speed up after a half mile or a mile) and by the time I was 2 miles into the run I was already running close to 7:00 pace.  I progressively got faster after that.  I ran the two miles before my turn-around in 6:48 and 6:49 (mild net downhill) and I hit the halfway mark (6.25 miles) in 44:35.  After I turned around I immediately sped up even more even though it was not really my intention and I ran the next 2 miles in 6:25 and 6:13.  I slowed down a little bit over the next few miles, but I sped up again the last mile running it in what felt like right at or just under 6:00 pace.  Total time for 6.25 miles was 1:24:12 (39:37 for the last 6.25 miles).  Average pace for the run was 6:44, with an average of 6:20 over the second half.  It felt good to run a little faster today.  I want to be more careful than I was a couple months ago when I started to develop symptoms of overtraining, so I better not do this too often, but today at least it felt good.