Holiday Running Update! (Kaiser Half Week 8 of 13)

Hello all, I hope the holidays were kind and you are refreshed and reinvigorated and that your new year is off to a solid start. Mine were a bit chaotic and scrambled. Thanks to work stuff, available venues/facilities, and horrific jet lag (if you've never experienced twelve hours of jet lag or "the full jet-lag monty" as I've been calling it, it is, well, really something), I got absolutely zero running accomplished on my trip to Dubai. I pretty reliably adjust to jet lag at the rate of one hour/time zone per day, so I was there pretty much exactly long enough to acclimate and then get back on a plane and do the whole thing over again. (Again, if you've never been jet lagged for twenty-four full days, it is...really an experience. Not one I recommend, but an experience.)

I arrived back home late the night of Dec. 18th, slept like a log thanks to an absolutely hulking thirty-three-hour travel day, had a great six-mile run on the 19th, then promptly came down with some kind of respiratory virus on the 20th (not Covid, thank Jesus for small blessings). 🤦🏻‍♀️ I always wear masks in airports and on transit now, so I'm going to blame my visit to the Burj Khalifa on Sunday the 17th for whatever I caught. (If I'd been thinking I absolutely would have worn a mask given how crowded/close quarters it is, but for whatever reason it just didn't occur to me, so stupid.) 

Honestly, whoever designed the whole plaza area surrounding the Burj really nailed it. You just cannot take a bad picture here no matter how hard you try.

Anyway, this was absolutely fantastic timing as I was getting back on a plane on the 22nd to fly home to Texas for Christmas. (Again: Insane jet lag? Respiratory/sinus infection/**more** air travel?? An experience! That literally everyone should try to avoid!) Long story short, I spent most of that trip including Christmas sick with something and not at all up to running. So, weeks 6 & 7 were pretty much a bust.

But!! I started feeling better after Christmas, and as of Week 8, started to get kiiiinda sorta back on track. Behold:

 ~*~*~ 🎡 🎡 Kaiser Permanente Half Week 8 of 13 🎡 🎡 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 29.5 miles

🐌 Easy: 16 miles
🏃🏻‍♀️ Moderate: 13.5 miles (at least, if we're going by my heart rate for most of it 🤣)

⚖️ Easy miles vs. fast/moderate miles: 54.2% vs. 45.8% (not ideal but I regret nothing)

On the Upswing, Fingers Crossed!

Where did we leave off friends? Ah yes, with dipping my toe back into pain-free running with a 12-mile week between 11/28 and 12/4!

Still taking things pretty easy and being cautious with my various finicky body parts, but dare I say it was a pretty solid week for the first time in a looooong time:

 ~*~*~ Week of 12/5-12/11 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 28.6 miles

* 23 easy
* 2 speed
* 3.6 race

O hai, perhaps you want some running-related content...

Who wants to date themselves by explaining the photo? Go on, I dare you. 🤣

Lately this has been more of a book blog than a running blog, but to be honest there hasn't been much of note to write about running-wise, unless you include one running-related injury after another "content."

So, yeah. It's been quite the month, with at least three distinctly different injuries, and I can't say I've had a single week in all of November that's felt like it warranted its own training journal. But perhaps a quick round of highlights (and lowlights) to catch us up to the present day??

 

 

 

Saturday 11/5: 14 miles at Indiana Monumental Half Marathon! This was my last running-related post. You can read the race report if you want, but the tl;dr is that I went ahead and went, though I was not even remotely fit and was still getting over a bad cold. People kept going on and on about the weather in dramatic fashion and how horrible it was, but friends. I was at CIM 2012. I was at Boston 2018. Both were much, MUCH worse. The only issue at Indy was some rain and some admittedly forceful wind in hours 3/4/5 (so, I feel a lot worse for the marathoners than the half marathoners). But the rain was more a drizzle than a downpour, and it wasn't even cold. Now, was it perfect PR weather? No, so I felt much less bad than I would have about the fact that I had an asthma attack around mile 6 and had to run the rest of the race a mile to a half-mile at a time with lots of breaks.

Of Marathons & Qualifying Times (Here Be An Announcement)

Remember those days when bloggers would, like, *announce* that they would be *making an announcement* like they were some kind of celebrity and everyone was just waiting around on tenterhooks to hear about what was happening next in their lives? It always made me think that maybe the announcement was something so terrible, so horrific, so shocking that we all needed to collectively prepare ourselves and brace for impact. 

And then after days upon days of Twitter-stalking or hitting refresh on their blog, the "huge announcement" would be, "Hey, I'm an ambassador for this race!" or even just "I'm running this race!" or "I am running a *different kind of race* than I usually run!" or even "Some random brand gave me some socks to give away" or something.

Like Jesus, Stacy. I thought you were giving birth to octuplets or starring in your own limited-run HBO mini-series. Don't toy with my emotions like this.

Which is all to say, sorry if I am taking you off guard, just MAKING AN ANNOUNCEMENT all WILLY NILLY like this without warning you first and giving you time to prepare your smelling salts and fainting couch.

So, like. Here is the announcement:

Camping in Big Sur + I'm not really into goal setting, BUUUUUUTTT........

Hello! I am just back from a lovely weekend camping with friends in Big Sur, which I solidly recommend. Ask me anything about how to do it.

Enough frivolous joy & natural beauty, on to running stuff.

My strength coach (who is not a runner, but very knowledgeable about strength training in general, and has been very enthusiastic in learning more about running and coaching runners' strength work) occasionally asks me about what my goals are for upcoming races. 

And back in the day I used to get super into that stuff, setting "A" goals and "B" goals and so on down the alphabet, investing each with certain levels of meaning and import and in some sense kind of judging the whole endeavor by how far up the alphabet I managed to pull off on one random morning. 

But to be honest I've kind of been dodging that question every time he asks, tossing out noncommittal responses like, "Oh, you never know what will happen, I'm just going to try to run my best," or "It doesn't really matter, I just want to feel like I ran an honest race." 

Which isn't untrue; I've definitely accepted the reality that there are a LOT of things on race day that you can't control, and you can definitely work hard and do everything "right" and still not have the day you want.

I'm also more apt now to think in terms of process goals rather than outcome goals; you may not be able to control every variable on race day, but you CAN set process goals that you have a lot more control over. Time goals for me have really been out the window since before the pandemic, but I have been all over some serious process goals in the last say year or so, including but not limited to:

Summer Planzzzzzz....

 Hello friends!

I'm back from an amazing Iberian vacation (photos coming soon) and ready to run-ble (see what I did there? Sorry not sorry). Also please enjoy this photo I got from Stow Lake Stampede:

I have some I don't want to say *big* plans in the works, but let's just say, big-ger plans than I've been willing to entertain in a while. Why?

Training Log: (Super) Dead Super Shoes + Crisis Averted!

Before we get into this week's training log, a moment of silence please for this amazing (in some respects) pair of New Balance RC Elites that I super enjoyed running in for a little over a year. As you can see I really pushed the envelope in this these things but I think April 3's SacTown 10 was destined to be their last hurrah, and we're calling it at a whopping 216.27 miles according to my nerdy little spreadsheet. I am pretty sure when you can actually see and touch the actual carbon plate that you should not be running in a pair of shoes anymore regardless of how much they cost.

These shoes were a pandemic-era Christmas gift from my mom but I am pretty sure they cost $225 which puts us at about $1.04 per mile. I have never calculated this ratio for a running shoe before but once you get up into the > $200 super shoe category, it really just becomes irresistible.

I've had opportunities this last year to run in a few different carbon plate distance shoes (not the Nike ones, I absolutely refuse on principle) and I have a lot to say about them, so look for a future blog post going into more detail. But for now, just know that I loved these shoes *so much* in terms of feel and performance but was also super bummed at how non-durable they turned out to be (lesson learned).

ANYHOO, let us move on to this week's training log.

LOOK I'M TRYING OK?

OK, so. Attempting to revive the blog is definitely reminding me of some of the reasons why I gave up a couple years ago! I've probably started five or six posts since the last one, but I have so little time for it that by the time I next sit down to write, my most recent draft feels woefully outdated. Then there is the fact that we went on A FOR-REAL, ACTUAL VACATION for these last three weeks, so obviously there wasn't much happening in the way of running or blogging. We actually booked this vacation two years ago, before it was rescheduled twice. Things were not looking good in Portugal in the spring, but then by late summer the Portuguese government managed to work some kind of miracle, and by the time we left for our trip the country was ~90% vaccinated.

[Related: AMA regarding international travel in These Unprecedented Times^TM.]

Sunset in Sintra, Portugal

Last Workout Before Statuto Race + Race Preview!

Last night was my last workout before Sunday's Statuto Race on the Embarcadero, an 8K put on by the SF Italian Athletic Club going back nearly 100 years. (The first running was 1919, but there was one year during World War II that it wasn't run.) I have never run an 8K, but something small and cheap and right in town in the 5-10K range seemed like a nice summer racing kickoff. It's new distance for me but one I'm kind of excited about, and I can't deny feeling just a bit giddy to race again as I put this last workout away.

The workout was nothing fancy, just some mile repeats at race-ish pace. RunCoach is predicting a 35:06 / 7:03 pace finish for me, but I think I can do a little better than that. Originally, I'd planned to run this race as more of a workout than an all-out race, but after a pretty decent month of training, I decided, what the hell. Let's just race and see how my fitness is. My target race (Wharf to Wharf 6-miler) is still nearly two months out, so there's no risk of blowing that race, and nothing else between now and then that I care all that much about. Also if you're going to get a shiny new automatic PR, why not make it a good one, amirite?

8K is 4.97 miles, close to halfway between 5K & 10K, which is sort of interesting in terms of trying to come up with a goal time/pace. Back in December I ran a strong-for-me 5K at 6:51 pace, even though I had not been training that much or that seriously, but it's been a very, very long time since I ran a fair 10K course in good shape. (I ran Shamrock Shuffle 10K in March in 43:05, though I think we can all agree that that course was closer to 6 miles than 10K, so maybe ~7:10-11 pace.) I think it's going to be a bit of a guess no matter what, but since my training for the last month has been going well, I don't think it's unreasonable to shoot for 7:00 pace for five miles, which gives a nice round 35:00 total.

Tonight's workout was 4 mile repeats this time with 90 second jog recoveries, so I basically went into it viewing it as a sort of 8K race simulator (just 4.36 miles instead of 5--4 hard miles plus the recovery intervals). Since I'm shooting for 7:00 miles on Sunday so I tried to stay pretty comfortably in that wheelhouse, with interval times of 7:01, 7:01, 7:00, and 6:57. I think that's the fastest set of mile repeats I've ever done, so I just hope I didn't push it too hard & am able to recover well enough by Sunday!

W2W Week 1 of 13: Training Cycle Reboot

Okay, universe....let's try this again.

To recap: I am definitely going to run an 8K in SF in a month, and I am definitely going to run Wharf 2 Wharf 6-miler in 2.5ish months. If I can manage to actually-for-real train between now and then, so much the better!

After a pretty packed and stressful late winter/early spring, my days have freed up a bit latelt, my weekend travel commitments have abated, and I have been in SUCH a better place psychologically now that there is more light and warmer weather and it's not pouring rain every day. A girl could actually-maybe enjoy getting a workout done in this?

Off to the Races

HEY HEY! Me again.

Let's get the preliminaries out of the way. I am a) still running, and b) still blogging. (At least, when time allows.) Since Hellyer 5K the rule has been "do some running when possible, if you feel like it," with the intent of following a real training plan starting in May. My next goal race is Wharf to Wharf 6 miler, and while my original goal of finishing in the top 100 women is almost certainly out the window, I am still planning to train hard (read: whatever life & work allows) & do my best.

(I mean, like. It *could* feasibly still happen, but going by recent years' results, I'd have to have one HELL of a three-month training cycle with no interruptions & basically turn my recent best 5K pace into my 6-mile pace, and then I MIGHT squeak into spot 100. So. Not impossible, but if I were you I reaaaaalllllly would not put money on it!)

From a running perspective, April really was lovely. All in all I wrapped up the month with 120 mellow miles, no workouts and nothing over 10 miles, just a bit of easy jogging here & there to keep the cobwebs clear. Sure, there were days when I would have preferred to get a few miles in & didn't; such is life. There was also a lot of travel, especially on the weekends, and although I did get a little running in in exotic locales, I didn't push it. The weather has been beautiful and I am digging on the extra daylight both in the morning & evening.

A little bit of hope

Sooooo this was supposed to publish last week & apparently it didn't & I didn't notice?? Fun times! :D . Just wanted to let you know I'm not dead yet & have been doing *some* amount of running, though this fall has not worked out exactly at all as I'd hoped. So, yeah. Not dead yet. Still trying to run when I can. Hopefully things will get easier after the holidays.

=============

It's been a busy few weeks (as I write this I am at the airport for the 5th time in the last week, GOOD TIMES) but I just wanted to pop in with a training update. Last we spoke I was having some super annoying problems with my right foot/hip/hamstring/lower back, but things are MAYBE kind of-sort of starting to improve a little.

Other life stuff: My sisters and I are planning a surprise 60th birthday party for my mom on Sunday Nov. 11. [Spoiler: We pulled it off & she was TOTALLY shocked!! It was awesome & I highly recommend throwing your loved ones surprise birthday parties.]

Yes, they fixed the peace sign but I didn't get a great photo of it after that. I hope someone else did!

Fall Speedfest, Week 7 of 18: Let Us Make Some Capital-C Commitments.

I've been failing at blog photography lately, so please enjoy this fall-inspired shot from my living room.

This was a taper week but it ended up being shall we say a bit more taper-ey than I'd exactly planned. Not catastrophically so, but. Well. Work and travel and other obligations and some weeks you just don't get all the way there.

I also ditched a race I was planning to run, thanks to a combination of not feeling great and being really busy on Saturday and having not signed up ahead of time. As I said on the facebooks, this fall was supposed to be #fallspeedfest but instead it's kind of turned into #falllazyfest as I have bailed on the last two races I kinda-sorta said I would run because I didn't bother signing up ahead of time so if you're already not feeling so great, it's an easier call to wuss out.

So, on Sunday night I got off my ass and actually registered for the three remaining 5Ks I have on my race calendar--OktobeRun (Redwood City 10/28), Oakland Turkey Trot (Oakland 11/22), and Silicon Valley Santa Run (San Jose 12/16 - a rare afternoon race!). I am definitely much more likely to actually woman up and go run if the money is already spent.

Speaking of money already spent, this coming week is RNR San Jose Race Week! I would say I've had decent but not phenomenal training and would just be pleased to come within spitting distance of my 2017 time of 1:41:07. I didn't think my training was particularly good last year but I ran a heck of a race considering I had an asthma attack in the middle of it. So perhaps there's hope for running another heck of a race and also not having an asthma attack?!?!?

We shall see...

Race Report: Race to the End of Summer 10K 2018

And #fallspeedfest2018 is off and running!

Race to the End of Summer was my first race since Big Sur Marathon over 4 months ago and it felt good to pin on a bib. I'd run this race twice before, in both 2016 and 2017; it's a solid local event, small and low-key but well organized, so it had been on my calendar since last year. I ran it in 2016 as my first tune up for CIM & shocked myself by running just 17 seconds off my PR & snagging 2nd overall & 1st in my age group (it's a small race) after just a few weeks of training (mostly lots of easy jogging) & only three speed workouts. Then last year (during the Bay Area's record-setting heatwave, after two days of moving & a night of basically no sleep) I completely fell apart & ran by far the worst 10K of my life. Clearly I had unfinished business with this race!

This year, as in 2016, I was only a few weeks back into running, almost all slow easy miles, & just three workouts (& oh yeah those eight weeks I took completely off from running after Boston 2 Big Sur). In a way, this took some of the pressure off--this was just my first race of an 18 week #fallspeedfest season, so all I really wanted to do was go in as fresh as possible, run hard, and not wimp out in order to get a baseline for the rest of the fall.

When the Itch Comes Back

No, this is not a TMI post about some kind of dermatological problem; rest assured I am rash- and pest-free and have not been going barefoot in the gym shower.

Believe it or not, we're talking about the itch to run.

Like I kind of mentioned in this post, since I started training "seriously" (whatever that means) about nine years ago, I've never *really* given myself permission to take an extended break from running. If you don't count serious injuries, I think the longest amount of time I've gone without running since 2009 was about a month, after my first marathon in 2011. Other than that, I don't think I've ever taken off more than a week, maybe two but maybe not, when I've been completely healthy and physically able to run.

After B2B, though, I needed to. Like obviously I needed some physical recovery time but I also felt like I just needed some time mentally away not just from training but any kind of running at all. It was almost like having a little bit of a running hangover; I didn't even want to jog across the street to make a light.

I wanted to come home from work and go work on my house, or read a book, or work on a grant proposal, or just freaking sit on the couch and watch an episode of Quantico. (Do not watch that show, btw, it is awful. It's too late for me but there may be hope still for you.)

I wanted to run errands and grocery shop and cook without constantly looking at the clock.

I wanted to go out to eat or to a BBQ or have friends over and not overthink every bite and sip that went into my mouth.

I wanted to go to karate and not be exhausted, to have my legs feel light and snappy and like I could spar full speed with other black belts and not endanger myself.

So I did. And it has been So. Great. If you've generally been in the habit of jumping from training cycle to training cycle, never taking more than a week or two off either because of fear of losing fitness or gaining weight or FOMO or peer pressure or just plain suppressing any inkling of desire to take an extended break from running, I highly *highly* recommend it.

I kind of felt like I wanted to start training mid-June-ish for my September 10K and October half, but I never put a hard and fast timeline on it. Something I definitely did NOT want to do was try to start training again if it was going to feel like a chore. Basically, every morning I'd wake up and ask myself, "Do I feel like running today? Even just 2-3 miles, maybe?"

And every day, the answer was, "Nope! Not even a little. 100% into chores/errands/renovations work/Netflix & wine." I've even (mostly) kept up with my blog reading, which in the past has sometimes made me want to go register for all the things. But this time my response was more, "WOO GO SO-N-SO!!" {as I sit back & turn on HBO & refill my glass of pinot.}

This past weekend, though, I have to say there was just a glimmer of an itch. My painful toenail finally fell off. My massage therapist has very nearly turned my steel cable (her words) adductors back into flesh & blood. Being semi-sedentary is starting to lose just a *bit* of its glamor.

I'm not saying I want to go smash something at the track. I'm not saying I want to go run 20 miles, or even 10. Some little aches & pains that I assumed were running related have not yet fully healed or gone away, and I haven't spent quite as much time in the gym or doing mobility work as I'd planned to this month.

Still. I was reading a blog post on Saturday about someone reaching a half marathon milestone time goal by less than 30 seconds and how amazing it felt, and for just a second I thought, "I WANT TO DO THAT! (Maybe, sort of? Semi-soonish?)"

So, yeah. I finally dug back into the running bag I never completely unpacked after Big Sur. I plugged in my watch (completely dead, of course) and fished out my road ID. There's technically a training plan for my 10K & half loaded into RunCoach but I'm a long way from ready to jump into it, so maybe sometime this week I'll head out to one of the local trails on the way home from work and set my watch to show nothing but time of day & heart rate & see how it feels to jog two or three nice easy miles. Just a little something to get the legs moving, and then we'll go from there.

By the time you read this.......

By the time you read this, I'll most likely have made my way from Hopkinton to Copley Square, God willing & the crick don't rise. And honestly, crick-rising is a legitimate concern at this point, since we're supposed to get hit with a big, wet, windy storm sometime in the next few hours. Did I mention the wind is projected to be within 10 degrees of a direct headwind for 73% of the course? ~12mph or so at the start, and a healthy 28mph by the finish? GOOD TIMES!! :D

Is it disappointing to have such shitty weather? Sure. It's not like I was planning on a PR race, but I was hoping the trip would be at least mildly pleasant. But honestly, I don't feel as disappointed as it seems like I should. No one is ever entitled to perfect--or even not-awful--race day weather; you hope for the best, but you show up and run whatever kind of race day Mother Nature has seen fit to provide. I still feel super privileged to be here and am very cognizant of the fact that it very well could be my one and only shot. Everyone says Boston is magic regardless of the weather, that the camaraderie & adrenaline carries you through unlike in any other marathon, so that's the attitude I'm going into it with.

I also keep thinking back to CIM 2012, that god-awful, god-forsaken train wreck of a race year when everything was headwinds and sideways rain and timing mats shorting out under water & police rerouting the course around downed power lines. How at the time I swore that was the hardest run of my life, how I fought and fought and fought for the finish and felt like I'd been robbed of a PR by the weather. In retrospect, I'm kind of grateful for that race; all around me here in Boston and online people are freaking out about the weather and endlessly debating what to wear, and I'm feeling oddly calm about it. Like. How bad can it be? Worse than CIM 2012? Worse than Oakland three weeks ago when mile 8 felt like mile 20? I doubt it.

And, hey, if it is, I'll have a new war story. I'll run into other people who also ran Boston 2018, and we'll shake our heads and share war stories like it was so awful but inside feel sort of proud that we were there & made it through.

I'll write a more detailed post sometime soon, but in the mean time, please enjoy some shots of our first two days in Boston.

Catch you on the flip side of this beezie. Wish me luck and warm fingers!!

4 More Sleeps: The Race Plan

You can thank Sara at Middle Aged Runner for this little gem.

Well, here we are. Tomorrow I get on a plane to Boston & things start Happening.

It has not been the training cycle I'd hoped for--not even close. I've been so busy and stressed with the remodel, and traveling too much, and injured badly enough to lose a week of training on three separate occasions. My plantar fasciitis has come roaring back in the past few months, making running (and walking) excruciatingly painful at times, and for the last month on my runs I've felt completely, utterly exhausted, like I'm wearing lead boots all. The. Time. (We did solve that one--I am apparently badly iron deficient, and while I've started downing iron pills & red meat like it's going out of style, almost everything I've heard or read suggests that it really takes a good two months before it makes a noticeable difference.)

Which is all to say, I'm trying to be excited about the experience, but I am not betting on having a particularly fast race. In fact, I'll settle for finishing and mile 8 not feeling like mile 20. I had a massage therapist work on my foot and calf on Tuesday, which helped, and hopefully taper will have revitalized me a bit. (I keep reminding myself that for CIM 2016, I felt pretty bad and exhausted all the way up until the day before the race, so there's still hope!)

Still, in any case, I AM planning to go out there & run the best, fastest race that I can, so I think it's still worth thinking through the course & coming up with a race plan.

Free-Range Snow

(You may recognize this trail from Week 6, though it looked a bit different then....)

I'm not totally sure what's the point in continuing with these weeklies, but let's just go with it for shites and gigglz. (You know the smiling-crying emoji? Imagine that here. If you're on my social mediaz, you've seen those a lot lately so you're used to it.)

It's Getting Real in 2018 (+ a discount code)

Hey hey friends! If you're reading this, then I assume you've successfully navigated the maze of Christmas carols and awkward gifts exchanges and cheese plates and champagne toasts that is The Holidays and arrived safely on the other side in good ol' 2018.

We spent Christmas in Spokane with Don's family, then celebrated New Year's by getting the heck out of the city and up to Bodega Bay for a few days with friends. I did my best to keep on my regular training plan through all the craziness and *mostly* succeeded, though there were a couple of snafus. Now that things are back to normal, I'm in the thick of week four, cranking out mile repeats & 2Ks at HM pace & whatever else RunCoach throws my way.

In January 2017, I started the year with a nearly empty race calendar, just a March half marathon (which I flaked out on) and a September 10K because of a cheap re-run offer from the year before. After CIM 2016, I felt a bit exhausted and extremely unmotivated to seriously train for anything. By early fall I finally pulled it together long enough to race a pretty decent half, but by & large it was a fairly lightweight year in terms of training & racing.

Not so this year! I'm not sure when it happened, exactly, but at some point my 2018 running year got super booked up. I'm even (gasp!) a race ambassador for something this year. (For which race?? You'll have to read on to find out!)

Here Comes The Sun!

*Of course*, the week I decided to nix my erstwhile goal race & not worry about weekly mileage for a while, I would end up running my first 40+ week in two months (and, in fact if I'm not mistaken, my highest mileage week thus far this year).

Monday 3/6: Karate

Tuesday 3/7: 8 easy

Wednesday 3/8: 8 easy

Thursday 3/9: 8 easy

Friday 3/10: 4 easy (planned 8, but had plans to meet friends for happy hour & just ran out of time)

Saturday 3/11: Rest/mad tile shopping

Sunday 3/12: 13.1 easy. This was the day I was supposed to run Shamrock'n, so since I was feeling pretty good, I decided to pay a little homage to the-race-that-wasn't & do my own super easy half marathon in Golden Gate Park (no driving involved). It was also my first double-digit run in *quite* some time, so I was relieve that it went well.

Total: 41.1 easy miles

Also, I don't know if it's just taking all the race/training pressure off or what, but this week my easy runs have been FAST! (Y'know, for me, for easy runs.) Most of the time when I shoot for keeping my heart rate around 140-145, my easy runs average somewhere in the 10:10-10:15/mile range; this week I was regularly ticking off miles in the 9:30-45 range at that same heart rate, sometimes even 9:15! The change seems too sudden (and my training lately too sparse) to really attribute it to an improvement in fitness, so I wonder if it had to do in part with me suddenly not being super stressed about racing a half marathon.

In other news, SPRING IS BACK!

I'm not usually someone that deals with Seasonal Affective stuff or gets too bummed about winter (partly due to the fact that we only really have a kind of "winter-lite", probably) but I suspect that that has played a nonzero role in my general lack of excitement about running. Sure, when I'm training hard for something and super committed, I'll run in just about whatever conditions exist without a second thought--wind, rain, darkness, cold, whatever. Enjoyment is not the primary goal. But when I'm not feeling super invested in training for something, I'm mostly running when I feel like it, in order to enjoy it and feel good. Running in the dark and cold and wind and rain most of the time? Not conducive to that.

So yes, I get that everyone hates Daylight Saving Time and it's an invention of the devil and all, but I cannot tell you how I excited I was to get an extra hour of daylight on Sunday. Being an afternoon/evening running, it's a huge relief to not feel the pressure of having to get a long run done by 5pm because I don't want to run in the dark.

Also, Sunday was just the most beautiful day imaginable in SF--75-80° and sunny, with just enough of a breeze for running to be pleasant.

All these people agree

It's looking like we might get a whole week without rain, so we'll see if this high (for admittedly quite low values of "high") mileage trend continues!

(And if you're reading this from the east coast....sorry. :-/ )