Daily Note

Fun fact for April 29: I reached 1000 miles on the year on Wednesday last week!

Woke up with a tight hamstring that persisted during most of the day, but more prevalently, I woke up tired. I think the reason I don't usually look forward to Monday workouts is because my 8 AM rarely permits me more than 7 hours of sleep. In any case, though, I wasn't feeling the track, where my right leg has already historically gotten way more out of whack than my left, so I decided to change course for the week again: what was long workout today, tempo Wednesday, meet Saturday is now long tempo today, short 1500 workout Thursday, meet Saturday (and has been approved by Phil).

So I felt a little tired when I headed over to the Upper Arb, but once there, I don't know if it was the pee break or something else, but I had a sort of determined energy in me that really got me motivated to have a good tempo run. I decided I was going to see how I felt on Carleton's 8K course and keep going for a while if I could. Took 2-3 minutes to settle into the pace and/or get to "comfortably hard", but after that...sheesh, I felt awesome. Hamstring totally not a problem, either. Right around 10 minutes into the tempo I kind of knew I was going to make it a while if I wanted to, so I kept my head up, kept my legs springy enough, and wound up going 25 minutes, just about 4.5 miles, for an average pace of 5:33. It was essentially a lower-key cross country race, and I kept my form, turnover, and looseness consistent throughout, which was super motivating. Added burner on the way back, on which I even had to sort of tell myself to slow down and take it easy. Just had some unexpected energy that didn't come from coffee, badminton, or anything else, so whether I have that in the future or not, at least I can be grateful for it today.

Looking back on this same day last year, I was coming off a super disappointing race at MAC Twilight (16:14) and this corresponding day's tempo was the first step back into positivity. It was half the duration, too, which almost shows me how far I've come.

Which brings me to the conclusion I drew from today: this track season so far has reinforced what I already knew from cross country - if I run 60-70 miles a week and do all the workouts, I'll be one of the better long distance runners in the conference. The question now is how I find another gear, whether that be for two weeks or five months from now.