Glory Days

Run 7 miles
Bike 30 miles

I used to be fast. Or at least I used to try to be fast, as in speed, as in short stuff, as in back in high school and college. At some point I ran a 4:30 mile and a 15:15 5k. Not that either of these are really all that fast but compared to what I could run now, or at any point in the past 5+ years, they are. Of course 13 years ago when I was running these times I would have likely died if I tried running 20+ miles.

Anyhow, the point is I don't ever even try to be fast anymore. I do speed workouts in my training but these aren't geared toward achieving speed but rather toward using speed to improve my endurance running. Anyway, back to the point. Today was one of those runs when I just felt really loose and quick. I didn't really plan on running fast but after about 4 miles it just felt really good to start pushing the pace. I was running on a quite technical trail so I had to be careful about my footing but I knew there would be a one mile stretch of trail at mile 5 that is quite smooth and flat. The forest service has mile markers on the trail so I decided I wanted to do a little time trial. To my surprise I ran a 5:00 mile. This is still a long ways from 4:30, which is still a long ways from any kind of serious speed, but the point is that it felt good and was fun. Enough fun to give up Endurance racing and try to pursue short, track/road races? Not hardly, but a fun change of pace to push myself like that for the first time in a long time.