Get in in

I made the commitment to run about every day for a reason.  It's hard, but it gets one ready in so many ways.  I tried the rest up and have good runs for Ice Age this year.  Four runs a week and about 50 miles.  I did not run like I wanted to.  Maybe there were other circumstances at work, but an 8:04 wasn't what I expected.  I was trashed today, I really felt like a day off, but I headed out the door.  I'm glad I did, I made it work for 8 miles with all the heat training garb on.

Back in the day, I was tired all the time training.  I'd run 80 -100 miles a week with hard stuff twice a week.  It was cumbersome and a heck of a lot of work getting it in.  It always paid off.  When you age and you have other extenuating circumstances it is easy to take days off.  I just can't and still do what I want at events.  When I was a kid, I was always asked why I ran so much.  The simple reason was I didn't like hurting all the time racing.  I trained hard so it wouldn't hurt so much.  That's my reasoning now.  I don't have any asperations of racing, but if I can run fluidly for a long period of time things will work out.  Fifty miles is a long way.  Much of any success is just outlasting other people. 

One thing you learn is when your tired you always feel like your going slow.  It never feels better.  You can tell your getting in shape because even though it feels slow your cruising through check points faster.  I know I could break 18 for a 5k right now.  I still feel if I could hit the track and work at it I could still get near 17.  But, this sport is different.  I'd rather get my miles in and be tired and depend on a good taper.  I really want to hang back at Voyageur and see if I can have a little the last 10 - 15 miles.  When I look back at my logs, I always do better running tired in training all the time. 

I'm not young enough to recover as well as I like an the oral chemo I take daily for years seems to put the governer on me.  The good news is during the day I feel great and if I didn't run I wouldn't have as much energy.  Like I have said before, I'm just a running bum, trying to rub a few sticks together and get a little fire going.