A Lot...For Me

Since I realized that I had tired legs during the Scuffle, I thought it best to just keep running hard.

Well, Monday I didn't run hard because I ran with Danielle. Five, easy miles, which was great for my recovery and a lot of fun. Pre-run pics here.

On Tuesday evening, I was finally able to make it to the TMR TNR at Twin Brook and tackle the dreaded stream of doom. The stream wasn't so scary, but the mud was quite prolific. Very, very squishy. With the addition of the sprints and a slightly faster pace than my usual, it was solid workout. It also confirmed what I was already thinking: I need to step it up. My easy runs have been entirely too easy. And, speed work/hard workouts would help. As far as the run goes, I'd have to say that Twin Brook is a groovy place to run, but it might take me a few times to figure out the official loop. I felt like I was on the same trail over and over again. Seems like a good excuse to me. I skipped the barefoot run at the end because I'm bucking the barefoot running trend just to be a contrarian.

At the TNR, Ian and Jim mentioned that they had a special torture in store for tonight: loops over Bradbury Mountain as part of their training for Escarpment. I was tentatively planning on running the Back Cove 5k, but running trails at Bradbury sounded way cooler than sprinting a flat 5k. So, I met them at Bradbury, and we did two loops of the modified Breaker course. I'm really glad that I did this run with those guys, but it was hard. It didn't feel far off from what I think will be my race pace on the big ups and downs. Like I said, I need to step it up.

It definitely helped running with people the last two nights. Kept me from being lazy. Hopefully, I'll be able to swing more group runs as I go forward. So, yeah, a lot of up tempo/harder running for me. I feel like I've proved to myself that I can put in the mileage and be healthy: MDI in the fall and Pineland 50k in the spring were huge steps up for me. Now, it's time to see if I can...well, get fast again. I'm not trying to get back to college fast...let's be realistic here..., but I'd like to think I could get faster than I am now. Maybe I'll even do some track work. (That's funny.)