What ever it takes!

4:45 am.  Thought I was going to have another 4 mile crash and burn like last Friday,  Took it really easy to start,  It took about 3 miles just to get everything moving right.  At 4 miles I took a quick water break and after that I felt pretty good.  First 4 miles in about 31:00 minutes.  Second 4 miles in 26:15.  7:09 average for total run.  Felt pretty good by the end, as long as I start out easy and give my leg a chance to stretch out I can get going pretty good.

I'm amazed that just 5 weeks ago I was putting in 100 miles/week, now it's about all I've got to pump out an easy 8.  Oh well, I've got time on my side, nothing planned for a while, I'm sure it will all come back to me some day.

5:00 am.  Dressed in running clothes this morning but when I got to the gym decided swimming seemed nicer.  1600 M in about 45 minutes, I really need one of those clocks that hang over the edge of the pool to track my time and laps better if I'm going to keep swimming.

Lifted weights for 30 minutes afterward, and then talked to Riverton Paul about St. George.   Found out it was pretty hot down there.

So I'm sure anyone (all 2 of you) who actually reads my blog are really sick of hearing about "my leg" cause I know I'm sick of talking about "my leg" so I have decided that today is the last day I will talk about "my leg" unless "my leg" gets ripped off in a car wreck or eaten by a shark, something news worthy, I'm done talking about"my leg".  From here on out any slow or pathetic workouts are no longer the fault of "my leg" it is simply because I'm being a wimp that particular day and just need to suck it up.

4:45 am.  Great workout this morning, slept really crappy last night, was very congested and couldn't get to sleep so I was very happy when it was time to get up and go to the gym.  I wanted to push myself a little bit today but wasn't sure how far my body would allow me to push it.  Started out at 7:00/mile pace for the first 10 minutes and then progressively got faster every 5 minutes for the next 50 minutes.  Ran the last 5 minutes at 5:40/mile pace.  1:04:25 total time,  6:26/mile average pace for entire 10 mile run.

The other good thing that happened this morning is that I got a side ache.  Why is this good? Cause finally I ran fast enough to get a side ache :)  Plus, nothing tells you it's time to get off the chocolate and ice cream diet like a good side ache in the morning.

4:45am Since I'm not following any formal schedule at the moment I just kind of have been winging my workouts, will I swim?, will I run?, will I lift weights?  I never really know until I get to the gym.  Makes life exciting. 

So I have this master plan in my head,  here is the plan, "get faster" more specifically 30 seconds per mile faster, at everything.  So my recovery runs I want 30 sec/mil faster my general runs 30 sec/mil faster, Marathon pace miles ....... you get the picture.  I've noticed that my body just kind of naturally falls into a 7:00/mile pace when I'm on a run and start getting tired or loosing concentration.  I attribute this to the fact that I probably do 90% of my runs at that pace.  So for 2011 I want 6:30 to be the new 7:00.  I want my marathon pace faster obviously and my 5K pace even faster.  I just want 6:30 to be the slowest pace my body wants to go even when it's tired and in autopilot.

So, to the point, this morning I decided to start re-programing my body.  Plan was to just hop on the treadmill set it to 6:30 pace and run that pace for 12 miles.  Sounds great on paper but what actually happened was slightly different.  Started out hurting a little bit and kept having to stretch and slow down, took me about 20 minutes just to get my body up to 6:30 pace, then I spent the next 35 minutes trying to make up for lost time, which got me very hot, tired, and achy, not to mention the fact I was coughing up flem balls the whole time.  So by the time I hit 1 hour and had to reset the treadmill I'd only averaged 6:35, but then after the reset I just never really had it in me to get back up to pace for my final 3 miles.

Anyway, managed to do the 12 miles in 1:19:40  6:36/mil avg.  off target a little bit but more importantly not the workout I had imagined at all.  I'm sure my original plan would have been much easier. and shaved off 1:40 from my time.

5:30 am.  Well I did my "fellow-shipping" for the month.  A couple of guys from church are training for a 1/2 marathon and my wife thought it would be a good idea for me to run with them, to make new friends :).  I had talked to one of them before about running and he told me he could run at about an 8:00 pace, that must be his 100m pace.  They were going 12 today, their longest run building up to the 1/2, and the furthest they had ever ran before was 8,  so I knew it would be pretty slow going and was ready for that, what I wasn't ready for was over 10min/mile pace, Oh my goodness it felt so slow,  they kept telling me their legs were hurting, I just thought to myself, mine are too.  If we could just pick up the pace they wouldn't hurt so bad. 

It's really funny how relative it all is, 2 years ago 10min/mile was my pace too, now it feels like I'm walking.   The body is a really strange thing, looking at the 3 of us together you would probably guess I was the slowest, these guys aren't in bad shape, and I'm taller, weigh more and probably have a higher fat content.  So what is it that really makes someone run longer and faster than another?  And if I was able to go from a 10min/mile avg pace to a 6:30min/mile avg pace in 1 year, then why can't I get to a 5:30min/mile avg in 1 year?

Anyway, 12 miles in 1:55:00  9:34/mile avg.