Four miles... Plus pickups!

Today I set out for an easy four miler with the intention of skipping the three "pickups" Shawn had written for me. I am still so nervous to run fast for any length of time. It's like the opposite of marathon training when the adage goes "the distance is what kills ya." The "ya," not the "you" I think adds dramatic flair. I feel like I could go for a decently long run, but turning it over more quickly is what set me back a week ago and I'm terrified of doing that again. Mentally healing from that might even take longer than the physical part. 

Once I got a couple miles in though, I thought I'd try picking it up. I had built up some confidence by then. Funny how a couple miles, just 10-15 minutes of running, can really shift your mental state. I'm used to that being a warm up period where I'm trying to jumpstart my legs from yesterday's or that morning's run where I might have run really hard or did some workout. Now it's a warm up period where I'm getting used to the fact that I'm even out there. I did two 90 second bursts at about 6:10 pace with 3:00 rest between. Heart rate jumped to about 170-172 during the pickups, which seems about right. Nothing fancy or impressive, but it was something. Getting back home I got a little tiny tiny bit of that "shitshitshit I did too much" feeling, but I threw some ice on the injured hernia side and took an ibuprofen, which should hopefully keep any inflammation down so it doesn't get out of control. So now we can call this two days in a row of running without noticeable pain. Well, now that I think back again I did get a mean side stitch about 5 minutes in, but that was due to the pathetic shape I'm in. In a sick way it felt kind of good. It's been a while since I've felt that. 

I also heard from an old high school track coach of mine, Tim Weir, who I haven't heard from in a while. That was pretty cool too

AH