Couple of Good Days

It's a fact of the running life that there are good days and bad days--even though that sounds like something you'll find inside a fortune cookie.

We always tell other runners when they're struggling that there are good days and bad days, and you just have to take what the day will give you. On a good day nobody needs encouragement.

Well, I just had a couple of really good days.

Tuesday evening I ran with the Half Wits and felt like I was struggling. Then Thursday came along and I just floated along. I ran the 4 miles from LRS out on West Washington to Meadowlark and back on Victoria Lane. There are hills along there and I just wanted to see how I would be doing on hills.

I did just fine, thank you very much.

Then Saturday was the Lincoln Memorial half marathon. It was my official cutback week, it was a training run, I wasn't going to push myself. In fact, I was thinking about maybe walking up all four major hills. And I was going to be running with my daughter, who had never run the distance before.

Yeah yeah, all that. I went out and felt strong the whole way, ran up all the hills and finished in 2:18:30. That's an average 10:35 pace.

I really couldn't believe how good I felt going up the hills. Melissa made me run the Lincoln Street hill, which I think is the hardest hill on the course. Then she had pain in her right foot around the 9 mile mark and told me to go ahead and "boogie". So I did.

I just maintained my steady pace, and on 1st Street behind Lincoln Park I started running up the hill and just kept going. When I crested the hill and turned into the park, I felt great. I still felt strong and just wanted to keep going.

Even sprinted the last couple blocks and the finishing chute. Couldn't help it.

This week will be interesting. The schedule says 4 on Monday, 10 on Tuesday, 4 on Thursday and then (gulp) 20 miles next Saturday. Right now, I feel like I can actually do it.