Step by step, mile by mile

AM - 2 miles. Technically on Saturday night, but I wanted to start up again on a Sunday. 7:10 pace. I didn't really feel super pumped to start running again during the break but while I was waiting outside(for about ten minutes) for my watch to link, I just felt butterflies in my stomach. Never really hurt coming back from a break, but today my legs ached something awful. Also never taken a break for more than a few days so that's probably why. It's gonna take some time to rebuild the system, but I'm excited about it.

PM - 3 miles w/ strides. Splits were 6:45, 6:23, 5:37. Wasn't planning on running it like a tempo but the second mile I started hurting and I wanted to see what I could do on the last one. Didn't have the pain like I did earlier, which was good. Not gonna try any fast stuff like this for a while, but it was definitely a good run. Before it felt like when I was hurting it was because I was blowing up, but today hurt way more than that. Man I love running.

3 miles 6:56 pace zigzagging through the fields. It was getting dark and I was wary of twisting my ankle because I've done that often on this route but I didn't. Kept it easier the first two miles. Last mile I started thinking of Ragnar, and how much fun I had doing them. I hope come a couple years Connor and hell raiser and I and more of the boys can form a good team. Anyway that made for a 6:27 3rd mile, which is pretty fast these days. I've negative split every mile of every run so far, but that doesn't mean much.

Racketball + 3 miles later that night. Only used my watch to measure the quad, it's almost exactly a half mile so 3:16 for that, hope I get to do some quicker stuff on it before the semester's over. Didn't really speed up on the quad, the pace might not be 6:30's, but it was probably sub 7. Felt good.

Was going to do more but my stomach was awful and I've felt pretty bad throughout the day. 7:04 pace, all on grass which made it a little harder.

4 miles @6:45 pace. I'm gonna stop putting my paces on the blog for a while. I think I psychologically just have a thing where I gotta have a worthy pace on the blog, and it's much easier to build mileage back up when you're running easy. I've ramped up mileage quickly many times running however I feel and I've never had injury problems doing so, so that's the plan. HOT out! And humid. I was dying.

Off to enjoy my first day of being 19.

Wanted to do more but felt sick.

Noon - 2. Woke up late. It was super hot out, very windy, and I had a pounding headache, so pretty miserable. Just glad I got out there. Gonna get on a good sleeping schedule soon so I can do my runs in the cooler morning and evenings.

PM - 2-mile WU to the amphitheater loop, I've always included it as the turnaround point since it's the end of the riverwalk but I've never done anything else on it so this was new. Did a 300m in 46, then two reps of about 500m. 4:35 pace for those. Took about 2 minutes rest in between everything. Felt great, I haven't done anything fast in about a month now(and wasn't planning on doing anything for a couple more weeks) and none of this felt particularly hard. CD for 6. Felt great overall, it was still pretty warm out but I was running 6 min pace on the WU/CD and it felt easy. Ran by this kid with his dad who about jumped out of his skin when I passed him(the kid).

5 miles @ 6:35 pace on the treadmill. Pace felt fine but man it was hot in there. Glad I stuck through though. Actually pace didn't feel hard at all so that's good. Stretching, core and lifting after.

2.5 to the rec, did a tough core workout. Only around ten minutes, but very intense. Ran 2.5 back. Didn't measure the entire run but whenever I checked the pace it was around 6:40's.

3 miles a couple hours later with strides. I think I'd categorize this as "flying" for me right now(sub 6 pace on non-uphills for the most part). Strides felt good. I feel good. Just 10 more days of classes/finals and I'll be done with freshman year.

3 miles. I recall having no life in me, except the bathroom cramps so I did less than I wanted.

 Did some 150 uphill sprints. Felt good, last ones were sub 4 pace. Mid 80's, which made me feel pretty tired. So much physics HW, done maybe 5 hours today, and it's not bc of procrastination. 14 days and I'm outski. Gonna enjoy living in an apartment and having a car next year

Oh man. A half mile into this run, while in the hub of campus, a large truck blaring music passes me going in the opposite direction. They honk at me and I hear something whiz by my head. One of them had thrown a glass whiskey bottle at me, and missed, luckily. I'm a pretty levelheaded guy who doesn't care about much, but MAN this drove me up the wall. 

In high school, my dad had to basically live in his car, alone, to be able to get to college. I had to take countless tests to get a full ride scholarship somewhere. And some degenerate who no doubt has his parents/the bank paying for 130,000$ scholarship, and treats it like it's nothing by getting drunk all the time? I hate going to a place when 2/3rds the student population is blasted at 6PM, any day of the week. And I hope next time that jackA actually develops  enough intelligence(through some miracle) to actually hit someone so he can pay for his actions(his parents will probably just pay the bail too). As you guys can probably tell this actually upset me, which isn't an easy thing to do

Ran to a turf field I ran on once in November, did a couple strides, ran back. Slept in so I ran at 3PM. Very hot. Very humid. I think it's time to retire the launches, I could feel them putting extra pressure on my left knee and Achilles. So close to 700 miles though

AM - to the rec and back, did core. It rained all night so the grass was muddy, but it was 50's out which felt so so so nice. Did two 30 second "pickups" at 5:09 and 4:36 pace. Felt good for not eating anything beforehand, I just woke up and ran. Also felt good because a week ago I did 3 miles in the AM and I got maybe ten minutes before I had to stop because I was just so winded and weak. Peg's were good as always @Cason

PM - 3 mile shakeout w/ 4x30s strides around 4:20 pace. Felt good. Was raining and still cold but coming back I was going sub 6 pace whenever I checked my watch. First workout back tomorrow!

10x(1 min on, 2 min off). On the grass for the first five where I went quick(4:34 avg pace), then I switched to the turf because I thought the turns would slow me down, so a little more recovery after 5. 4:49 avg pace for those. #5 was 4:20 pace but the other nine felt fairly easy! When I was doing 100 miles a week in September I tried this and could barely manage 5:0x pace, and it felt like sprinting. Super pumped that all my work last season carried over. Good stuff. I was hoping to manage 5 flat pace if I felt good so this was great. Felt fantastic altogether, despite running in the heat and wind!

8 miles with a half mile trying to feel out a tempo pace. Ran on the speed sapping grass to keep it honest. Ran 5:30 pace but I still think it was a little quick. 9 days until I'm a college sophomore, wow. 80's and sunny out so I got to work on my summer tan too. 

2.5 to the rec, core, 2.5 back around 3. Hot out. My fitness has increased exponentially these past couple weeks. I'm able to do 30 reps of core exercises I couldn't have done one of a week ago. Two weeks ago running to the rec felt like an eternity but these 5 flew by. I'm hitting paces I didn't think I'd hit for another 4 or 6 weeks.

3 mile shakeout w 2 strides that night. cut short because of reasons.

I like running, and I think I have a certain aptitude for it(being able to go from 30 miles a week junior year to 70-80 senior year, and 110 last summer w no injuries), I most definitely have a larger aptitude for academics. People debate whether being smart is a talent or the result of hard work, and who am I to say. However, I am one to say that my legs will fail before my brain. Einstein wasn't able to play piano or violin because his body failed him in his later years, but his brain certainly didn't, or at least not at the same rate. I know I'm pretty smart, I got a 33 two years ago on the ACT and I feel that I'm leaps and bounds ahead of where I was then, but in both cases, I think I spend more time running, or stretching, or recovering idly, then I do on getting more intelligent. I've always been curious where I could be if I actually devoted time to research, field and case studies, etc.

This sounds like a resignation from the blog. It isn't, it's far from it. I'm going ALL OUT these next 12 months or so. Not doing 150 miles a week or anything crazy like that, but just every workout is run to the best of my ability, cleaning up my diet, etc. I have certain goals I want to try to get this next year(that I'll keep disclosed for now), and if I get them, or at least know that I was good enough to get them, then I'll stick another 4 years out. If not, then it's a sure sign that I was born to strive for a Nobel prize(I can settle for a Pulitzer). Even still, I doubt I'll stop running, or at least until my legs feel a lot worse going 6 minute pace. Going fast, hitting 2 hour long runs, logging 700 miles on a single pair of shoes... I love it. Plus it has great physical and mental benefits too. Having a nice body and 32 BPM heart rate is sweet. But I also would like a chunk of time to learn the violin...

I'm cool w/ no one reading this. I've just lost a bit of sleep lately pondering these types of things and voicing them(albeit online) is soothing for me. The way I see it, this way, I have nothing to lose! 2018, I'm out for blood. Time to put in some work.

5 miles. My left calf was feeling tight, so I played it safe. Did a stride to loosen it. Gonna stretch a lot now. It already feels better.

7 miles with 4 strides in the butler field. I did them where I'd start at the 50yd mark, run at around 5 flat pace and do a wide turn and change gears the last 100 yards. Only timed the last two 100 yard parts of those, 13.1 and 12.5. Glad I took yesterday off because my calf feels much better. All I ate was junk because it's all the dining hall had though, so I could have felt better. It was mid 80's and windy out too, and I started my run at 9PM so that was strange.

7 pretty steady in the storm, no watch. Almost had my first river walk run ever where I didn't see anyone else, but I had to cross paths with some hobbyjogger with half a mile left.

Shakeout that night to get to 10 for the day and 800+ miles on the pegs. Probably have over 1000 miles on these things counting walking. Felt good, it finally stopped raining so it felt nice and cool out.