Put me in, Coach!

..I'm ready to play, today!

Thursday I was feeling OK enough to attempt a run. I had a nagging suspicion that I might only make it a couple of blocks, because I was still having some pain in my I-don't-really-know-what (intracostal muscles, maybe?), though my head was feeling MUCH better.

Dave joined me, and we set out at a really easy pace. At that pace, it sort of felt like someone was karate-chopping me in the ribs. I decided to let my body get warmed up while staying slow, and call it quits if the pain didn't stop. I was anxious to get back to my training plan, but injuring myself further only means longer on the bench. The biggest part of training intelligently is knowing when to STOP.

Luckily, though, the pain slowly subsided to more of a "poke" with each step, and then finally subsided. I did something I often try to do, but rarely manage -- negative splits. For those who don't live in a household that is about 60% consumed by running, that means that you start slow, and get faster with each "lap" (mile, in this case). I didn't try to do it; I just got slightly faster as the pain got less and less. It was a pretty great feeling, and I was really chugging along by the end of it. Because of that, I still ended up at my normal average pace (~10:20/mi), and instead of feeling exhausted, I felt great. Now, whether this was due entirely to running negative splits is a little hard to say. I had just taken off a full week of running, and I'm sure that didn't hurt my overall energy levels either.

Saturday was scheduled to be my 5miler, which is my longest run of this training plan so far. (I did the 10K in Nov, but I took a few weeks off afterward and kind of killed my momentum.) I typically do my long runs niiiice and easy. In light of that, I kind of wanted to get out again on Friday and do some speed work, or get in a short, hard run. I went for short/hard, and I had a very entertaining 2 miler at a 9:43/mi avg pace.... during which I thought I might be mauled by a dog. It was very very frightening there for a second. It was a german shepherd. I love German Shepherds if I know how they were trained; I mean, they make great attack dogs for a reason, and the thing's owner looked just a little too aloof as the dog went charging into the street toward me, barking and snarling. Luckily it was all bark and no bite, but it definitely helped me to speed up for a bit!

So then there was today -- 5 miles with Devon the Divine! I've been really looking forward to this since we first talked about it, and I was really glad that I didn't end up having to cancel. It seems like every weekend we end up with something to do that gets in the way of other plans. It's usually fun stuff, but it always makes me feel like we're pushing off or canceling other things that we had planned.

Our run this morning was AWESOME. There's always a little hesitation when you first run with someone -- will you be able to keep up? will they talk the whole way, or say nothing the whole way? (Strangely, when I run with dave, i rarely say a word.. when I run with other ppl, I can't shut up. lol.. so I usually just worry that i'm annoying the poo out of someone. lol) But I think we made excellent running partners (hopefully she thinks so too! ;P). I always run faster when I'm with someone else, and Devon is pretty much at the same pace as me, so I think we challenged each other well. Lucky for nike+ though, because we started out too fast. Once we settled into a rhythm, we actually ended up (again, unintentionally) doing negative splits. The graph looks really neat. Our average pace was awesome, too -- 10:38/mi. Thanks for the company, Devon! If you could just move here so I could have someone to run with on a regular basis, that would be great. LOL

So I guess you could say I'm back in the game. I am really REALLY hoping to run the river run without walk breaks. I'm hoping that Devon and I end up staying around the same pace, because I think having someone keeping me honest would help. :) I'm starting to feel more confident, though. I did the last mile in about 9:55, so that means I still had a decent amount of energy at the end, which is HUGE. When I did the 10K in November, the 4 mile mark was when I was dying for water and a walk break, not speeding up. I think that running more consistently through the week has helped immensely with my respiratory endurance. I wasn't really heaving today at all. I think about the fact that I ran a half marathon by only training 1 day a week, and a marathon by running only twice a week... and I wonder how the heck I ever made it to the finish line... Then I remember that it was agony getting to the finish line, and I can't help but realize how I cheated myself. Lesson learned -- finally. Hey, better late than never, huh?

(I'm really incapable of writing a short blog entry...)

Well, Dave is going to take a post-20-mile-run nap for an hour or so before we head out to dinner, and I'm going to work on editing some photos from my TTD shoot last week. Now that I can sit at the computer without pain, I'm excited to play, and to get Jen her pictures!!