Long and slow? Check.

Last night I was SO excited about my long run, and it kept me up pretty late. I had been reading about different running tips and I think that it gets my adrenaline going! When I woke up though, I was really dreading it. I'm not sure if it was just because I was really groggy or what, but it took a lot of encouragement on the part of Joshua (again) to get me out of the door.

But once again I made it! This time I went to the gym in the am, since I knew I would have a better shot at lasting the whole time if I had no stomach pain. My plan was to run four miles at a twelve minute mile pace, which I followed exactly. I warmed up by walking around the track a few times, bu it wasn't until I was a mile or so into my run that I really felt loosened up. My legs were still really tight and sore from lifting and uphill repeats earlier in the week which I think was part of the problem. The first two miles really dragged on and I wasn't feeling it at all, but I pushed through and the last two flew by. I considered running another mile at the end since I was feeling so good, but I decided it would be better to end on a high note, and not push myself too hard too fast. More importantly, my knee was aching a bit and I didn't want another major flair-up like last week.

This week I listened to wait wait again, and ran in the treadmill. I feel a lot more comfortable for some reason on the treadmill right now, but I'm sure in a few weeks I'll be back to preferring the track.

I was supposed to do a full body lifting session to make up for some skipped days, bit that definetly did not happen! After working out for an hour and a half I really run out of motivation to finish! I justified skimping on the weight lifting by claiming that my legs were too sore, but I really should have lifted with mu upper body a bit more. I did manage to do leg lifts, sit ups, and chest pushes. Lame, I know. (Also, like how I totally make up names for the lifting things?)

Tomorrow I am scheduled to run 1.5 easy miles outside (scary!!). I hope I do it! Joshua says we'll open gifts after I run and he gets back from picking up bread from the Mennonite bakery... So I guess I'll have some extra motivation!

A lot of what I've read (ok, everything I've read) has said to hold off on speed training until you have a decent base mileage built up. I really enjoy speed workouts though, so I think I will let myself do them after my I've gone through m schedule twice. In the meantime, I will replace my speed drills and tempo runs with slow three milers. This means basically all of my runs will be done at the twelve minute mile pace which feels SO SLOW! But an article I read last night makes a good point: long distance training has relatively little to do with muscle strength, but everything to do with the cardio& respiratory systems. Working out too hard (re: speed drills) sends your body into the anaerobic process, which does nothing at all to make your lungs/heart more efficient. Running at the threshold improves efficiency - although it takes more time, it ends up making you a better runner. I have this tdiculous fear that making all of my runs at a slow pace will ruin my ability to run at my natural, comfortable pace (about a 9:15 minute/mile). I know that's not true though. And with a more efficient respiratory and cardiovascular system, I might even be able to increase my comfortable pace.

The other thing I read was that long runs should be short enough that you feel like you could run another ten minutes or so. I never used to run like that! I made all of my runs tempo runs - at race speed. Never slow and long. I didn't know how to run at different paces!

But blah blah blah. Iloverunning!! Surprise! I saw two girls doing suicide runs on the basketball court while I was doing my cool down around the tack and I was sooo jealous!! I wanted to be doing suicides! Ok maybe I was more jealous of the fact that she is in incredible, incredible shape and looked totally comfortable sprinting all over. I mean, she looked as comfortable doing suicides at like, a six minute mile pace as I d while jogging! But I digress.

Merry Christmas eve eve!