Again, the Highs and Lows of Training

I've written before about the ups and downs of training, and generally about the concept of "Triumph and Disaster".

Here's yet another example:

4 days ago I had a breakthrough workout. I ran 20 miles in about 3 hours. It was a beautiful Saturday morning and I ran with my buddies along the west edge of Lake Washington, from Madison Park to Seward Park, around the park, then back to Leschi, across the I-90 floating bridge to Mercer Island, back to Leschi, and then up to Madison. I felt great. Nothing hurt. (Furthermore, I had never run more than 15 miles before, so this was a big moment for me).

20 miles is awfully close to 26.2, and visions of marathoning began to resurface in my little brain. You might recall, I've been trying to stay healthy enough to train properly for a marathon. I've been trying for nearly two years.

After Saturday's glorious run, I began to piss off the gods, apparently. I began... to make plans. I started looking at winter marathons.

OOPS! Dis aliter visum.

In last night's track workout, it was time for the monthly two mile "time trial", or pace run. It is our coach's way of assessing fitness level. There is no way to cheat on a two mile pace run. You basically have to run as fast as you can, and about half of it should be very uncomfortable. Chuck often mentions that this particular workout is the least attended. "The truth hurts", he said to me last night. "People don't want to see how unfit they really are, so they skip this workout."

Well, I don't have a lot of ego wrapped up in this whole running thing and I'm not afraid of the truth of my fitness level (in spite of all this self-flagellation on my blog). So I showed up, and ran.

And I totally sucked. Time: 14 minutes, 24 seconds. Here is how my 8 laps turned out:

1 - 1:45
2 - 1:42
3 - 1:44
4 - 1:47
(mile 1 = 6:58)

5 - 1:51
6 - 1:56
7 - 1:54
8 - 1:46
(mile 2 = 7:26)


About 3 months ago, in my last 2 mile pace run, I ran my fastest ever: 13 minutes, 45 seconds. Last night, I figured I'd run around that same speed or perhaps faster. Boy, was I wrong.

Anyway, I've been pretty busy the last couple months and haven't kept up with my blog. I've had an exciting summer and really need to record it properly here. The last half of July was spent on a long motorcycle trip. I've got lots of photos and observations from it, and one of these days I'll get around to posting.