Feeling Inspired!

After months of feeling drained and dead on many of my runs, something has awakened inside me again and I’m feeling fired up as ever!! 

Yesterday morning started a little rough, I had not gotten much sleep as I was nervous I was going to sleep in and miss my early morning speed session, this resulted in maybe an hour or two of rest… lucky for me I don’t require much sleep to operate but my legs still felt a little dead.   I struggled to hit an 8 minute pace on my warm-up which was not a good sign and the thought of skipping out did creep in my mind more than once.   Moreover the new group I’m training with early mornings are FAST and I wasn’t about to get by on “half-assing” my morning run… darn accountability!! J  but everything changed once the workout began….

… before I get into the workout itself let me back up as I don’t think I’ve explained the “early morning crew” before.   A couple weeks ago Jessica Hruska asked me to join in a group of runners that are meeting early mornings throughout the week to train together.   The group consists of a number of very quick runners in town that are all gunning to hit about the same time goals; for me that goal is a sub 3 hour marathon.  I was a little concerned about running with people that could be faster than me (probably some fear of bruising my ego there) but I am very glad I joined in.  It really is a great supplement to all the other training I do solo and with the club and a chance to get to know a new group of awesome people and runners.   Last week we did mile repeats which went very well and this week we progressed to 1.5 mile repeats at the same pace (6:30 per mile).

So I will start by saying that 1.5 mile repeats are no walk in the park and nor did I expect them to be... but holy crap what difference it makes with a group!  The four of us ran as a pack, pushing each other throughout the run and we were flying!  We nailed every split progressively faster hitting 6:24, 6:23, 6:20 and a 6:14 to wrap it up... not only was the workout great on paper but there was an almost indescribable feeling I had of just floating along with the group during the run, I zoned out and just let my legs go, it felt amazing!

As the day progressed things just kept on clicking, I ran another 6 miles with some nice elevation with the club last night putting my days total up to about 14 miles.  I have not felt so powerful on hills in months!... it’s crazy but in the last few weeks as my mileage has climbed and workouts have gotten tougher I’ve been feeling stronger than ever, I can’t figure how exactly that would work but I’m going to enjoy every minute of it!

Sorry I didn’t intend for this to be a brag session on how great I feel but I have learned with running as with life itself that it’s a series of ups and downs and progression is never linear, this has never been so true as this year… I’ve struggled more with my training this year than I have in a long time, I’ve put in hours and hours of training with lackluster results and that has been tough to swallow at times.  Nevertheless I’ve been plugging away mile by mile regardless of results knowing it would all turnaround someday… days like yesterday reaffirm that I’m still on the right track!