![\"runningselfie2\"](\"http:\/\/adjustedreality.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/runningselfie2.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nLast year, this time, my run game was totally on the up and up.\u00a0 I found speed and endurance and just about every run was like sunshine and puppies and rainbows.\u00a0 After a legitimately shitty period of running legs during 2013 triathlons after sustaining a knee injury in the spring, it was like being a butterfly that emerged from a cocoon.\u00a0 It was like, 3 weeks after tri season ended, my running attitude and aptitude somehow pulled a 180 and I was on top of the world.<\/p>\n
This year, I’m still in that cocoon.\u00a0 Mostly.\u00a0 The wings might be starting to poke through but the transformation is not as dramatic as last year.<\/p>\n
It’s a bit unfair to compare.\u00a0 Last year my run was SO SHITTY during tri season that I really had nowhere to go but up. I was running so below my capacity it was sort of… how could I not run better?<\/p>\n
Last year this time, it was so much more temperate bordering on chilly.\u00a0 We’re finally having our first morning where it’s below mid-60s and humid at dawn this weekend (and actually, mid-60s and humid has been the best of it, it really feels like summer has just continued on, really).\u00a0 Last year the weather was pretty much perfection from Kerrville to Space Coast.\u00a0 Not so much this year.\u00a0 Last week’s run ended at 86 degrees on the thermometer and feels like WTF.<\/p>\n
Also, I think I raced Kerrville harder this year, and then went on vacation, and then spent the first week back with my mystery sickness\/allergies, and then decided to wreck my bod at a crossfit class and post my slowest run of the year after.\u00a0 When you have only TWO three week blocks to train, and one of them is just hampered with issues, it’s not exactly a confidence booster.\u00a0 Another 180 from last year, where training just sort of cruised along.\u00a0 I was kind of scared of how good I was doing last year, this year I’m scared I’m not improving at all.<\/p>\n
However, the goal for the last three weeks was simply volume, and besides the first week, when I was sick, I nailed it.\u00a0 I just expected the easy pace to drop off a little quicker like it did last year.<\/p>\n
Week 1: 21.5 miles ran (which for how AWFUL I felt, was pretty good, though I wanted to hit 35)<\/p>\n
Week 2: 40.5 miles ran (40 planned, check and check)<\/p>\n
Week 3: 50 miles ran (weekly run mileage PR!)<\/p>\n
Midweek miles have just been runs.\u00a0 A few hilly, a few hot, some before work, some after, some at lunch, some with headlamps, some in full sun.\u00a0 I’ve put a *little* effort into parts of a small handful of them but mostly they’ve been miles, easy pace\/effort.<\/p>\n
Week 2 and 3 had long runs (because I’m not counting 6 miles as anything but “holy crap I’m still recovering”).\u00a0 My 16.5 miler (15-18 planned) was… how shall I say… a character building experience.\u00a0 Everything felt *off* immediately and never got better.\u00a0 I was cranky, I had technical difficulties with my music, it was HOOOOOOTTTT and I really just hated every step of it.\u00a0 Not the best initial long run of a short training cycle.<\/p>\n
However, I realized even during the crappy run that it was good mental practice.\u00a0 Last year, with the weeks of sunshine and rainbows, I showed up to the race feeling off at mile 1 and it threw me HARD.\u00a0 Now I know that not feeling awesome isn’t an emergency, it’s just one of the cards you draw on the day where you toe the line.\u00a0 It’s just a longer day of managing that.<\/p>\n
Last Saturday was our first 20 this year.\u00a0 Suffering through that painful 16.5 brought some mental toughness confidence, but that 20 gave me the other side of the coin.\u00a0 This was just a super pleasant, floaty, mostly painless, happy fun run in spite of just about everything crapping out that day.\u00a0 Who gets a floaty 20 miler?\u00a0 That shit is supposed to be hard, right?<\/p>\n My headphones broke at mile 7.\u00a0 We didn’t bring enough money for gatorades and had to beg for ice\/tap water at our second stop.\u00a0 It reached 86 and was full sun by the end, which was actually hotter than the week before.\u00a0 But somehow, this one was just a-ok super fine.\u00a0 I mean, about mile 17, it got to be some effort.\u00a0 Before that it was just playing around outside.\u00a0 And this was exactly, on the nose, marathon pace from last year.\u00a0 Just sublime.\u00a0 This was the run I was waiting for, for sure.<\/p>\n This week is stepback week, and then I have four more weeks until the race after that.\u00a0 With these short blocks, it seems that the first half is slogging through a base build, and the second part is where I find all the fun gains when I push myself a little.\u00a0 Here’s hoping!<\/p>\n A few things I’m looking forward to in the next few weeks:<\/p>\n Honestly, right now, I’m targeting about the same finish time I was targeting last year – around 4:40.\u00a0 This is a time I fully believe I could have at least came close to if I had the right day, and didn’t blow up between miles 13 and 20.<\/p>\n And maybe that’s what 2014 is about.\u00a0 Having the right day, against whatever else life throws at me.\u00a0 I’ve been able to have some good solid races this year, races where I’m executing on the day on paces that are either at or above my expectations with my training… so… I’m hoping to continue the trend November 30th.<\/p>\n Other stuff:<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n\n
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