Step by step, mile by mile

AM - 8. Legs felt very tired at the start of the hills but after a couple of miles I felt good.

PM - 4.

AM - 8. Sandy was pretty car-free so that was nice.

PM - 4.

AM - 8 miles. legs actually had some life in them today so i opened up my stride for the middle 4 miles, no watch though so no idea on the pace. gonna start using a watch again soon. felt good overall, had some stomach cramps but they didn’t start until the last mile so it wasn’t hard to power through.

PM - 4

80 miles this past week

Had some calf pain(not achilles) during my second run on Wednesday. I rolled it out and found a huge knot so hopefully it wasn't anything big. Took all of yesterday off, going to do some biking tonight and if the leg feels good, run a few miles tomorrow. I can't feel the pain anymore, even when I flex/stretch, so that's good. Just a minor hiccup, I've had one every time I build up mileage since I joined the blog. Might have more but as long as I listen to my body and shut it down quick like I did with this I should be fine.

Just 4. Legs felt pain-free, I had a lot of bounce in them from 72 hours off but I know I'll lose that feeling in about a week.

4 + stretching, core and steam room at the gym after.

another 4. probably bumping it up to 8 again tomorrow

8 in the morning. Rained for the first 5 miles or so. Only ate a couple handfuls of Walnuts on a very busy yesterday so I felt pretty tired, after the big hill at 1.5 I told myself "if you can get out 4 miles, you can make it back" and I managed to do that. Last 2 miles were a death-march though. Time to eat!

PM - 8

AM - 5

PM - 4. Wasn't planning on running again, but had about an hour before my 5PM lab so I just got it in.

AM - 8. Fartlek after the turnaround. Felt a little rusty the first couple but was starting to feel good by the end.

PM - 4. Driving up to Louisville to hang out with my best friend from high school on his mission, and spend a bit with an ex's best friend(love you Macy). A weird but good start to the 21rst birthday weekend.

Any drink order recommendations for the bars are welcomed :-)

semi-long run in the morning, with a 6-mile fartlek in the middle. A good way to start the day, longest I've ran in a minute

I would define my current fitness as "frequent half-marathon participant"

Another longer run after watching Infinity Wars for the first time today. Good movie, still not gonna watch Endgame until it's on Netflix though

Another 12! Starting to feel in shape

6 in the morning.

6 after my second midterm of the day, and last of the semester. Super mentally drained and not extremely motivated to run, but I'm glad I did because my legs felt really good. I was able to open up my stride and speed up, but it felt like I wasn't putting in any more effort. Maybe it's just a night-run thing. If that's the case, I'm looking forward to my nightly 8 miler when I'm up that high in mileage.

12 this morning.

12 in the morning. Managed to get out the door by 7 so that's a big step for morning runs for me. It was cold and windy since it stormed super hard all night, and started drizzling the last 4 miles.

Another 12-miler.

Well, the legs haven't fallen apart yet, so maybe this mileage thing is still doable. Might get a few 4 milers in the afternoon along with the morning 12, but with finals coming up I probably won't focus on mileage uptake until those are over. Still, 84 miles is no easy feat! I'm happy I've made it this far. I'll be starting my hospital job after finals, I'll be working in the cardiac department.

Longest run since 2016. Mentally it was about as tough as I thought it'd be, but still not bad. 

Top 5 on the mileage board for the month, hopefully I'll crack top 3 by the end of it. MIGHT do 100 this week which could very well finally get me my first #1 weekly mileage spot. It isn't going to feel as good as if I had gotten it back in 2015 or 2016 when we had pro marathoners and ultra runners topping the list every week, but I think running the mileage they were doing is a silver lining to it. Moreso, I'm glad there's runners on here still that inspire me to give my best every day. Still gonna try to make you guys look like punks on the mileage board though!

Went to the gym in the evening. Stretched, did core, lifted upper body and hit the steam room. Getting coffee with my first ex-girlfriend this week. Excited to flex my fit body on her, no pun intended

12 in the morning. legs felt pretty good, not like they’re about to fall apart or anything. gonna go to the gym tonight for the same routine as yesterday

12 in the morning. Legs did not hurt

4 in the afternoon + stretching, core and steam room. felt good so the first 2 miles were 6:26 and 6:01. felt good. typing this on my phone in the steam room lol

Super busy today so got a shorter quicker run in this morning with a watch, finally. Closed hard with a 5:31 mile with a 2:34 last half. Really happy with that since I haven't ran under 6 minute pace in a year and a half, based on how the last half felt I could probably run 5:00 after one or two okay workouts once I get a little speed endurance down. Excited to run fast more after finals. 6:28 avg pace

Another 6 at noon. Was going to wait longer but I felt ready coming home for my lunch break. In reality the legs felt like lead from not taking too much time to recover, but I got it done.

stretching, core, weights and steam room after afternoon classes. putting the work in

16 miles in the morning. was going to do 12 and 4 in the afternoon but i felt alright after 10 miles, and since it’s supposed to rain all afternoon and i have a lab final tonight i decided to knock all the mileage out. might go to the gym tonight after the final

Went to the gym after the final. Stretching, core, upper body, steam room. There was one guy in the steam room who looked even more resilent than me(I normally go 12-13 minutes, I've never had anyone outlast me), so we both stayed in there for about 22 minutes before I gave in and left. He left seconds after, but still, mad respect to that dude.

4 after morning classes. Couldn't manage to wake up at 5 today so didn't have time for a real morning run.

Was going to do 8 after afternoon classes, but figured I'd rather do two 16 mile days in a row than do a 16 mile day the day before a long run. Ran the out and back for 8 miles then ran up Sandy hill and past to get to 10 and came back for 12.

100 miles from Saturday to Friday

Oh also slight TMI but I peed blood after the second run. I know it can happen from strenuous exercise, and I haven't hydrated too well lately(I'm not mistaking dehydrated pee. I work with blood) so I'm gonna get that up because I know you can lose a lot of fluids running in the south.

12 at noon. alarm didn’t go off so I woke up at 8 and had coffee with an ex at 9 so i didn’t have time. coincidentally, we split up a year ago today. funny how life works like that. coffee was good, i remember why we split but i forgot why we got together, today was a nice reminder of that.

back in the triple digit club! hope my membership is an extended one

4 in the morning. Moving long run to tomorrow

8 + strides in the afternoon

Doing the long run in a little while. If I can manage the time this week to increase last week's mileage I'll probably be getting close to new mileage territory(my highest week is 114 when I was 18)

19 mile long run on a bright hot midday and good lord was it tough. I've ran 20 miles twice and 19 once so this is tied for my third longest run ever. I've been pretty good at knowing what I'm in for on every run but this one took so much more out of me than I expected. My legs didn't feel bad during but I kept getting sweat in my eyes which was awful, need to start hydrating during these long runs, and definetly not do them this late in the day this summer again. Glad I got it done, and hopefully legs feel livlier soon because getting up the porch stairs of my house was much harder than it's ever been, I'd be okay with taking an off day since I managed to hit 300+ miles which was my A goal for April

managed to swing by the rec center when i left to get some food in between studying sessions and get 15 minutes of biking in just to get the blood flowing in the legs.

6 in the morning, managed to get out the door before 6AM so that's a big step for me. Jogged the first mile or two and worked down to the normal pace naturally, legs were tired but not hurting anywhere. Need to get better at morning runs because this was a good start to the morning

10 miles + strides after my mechanics of materials final. I hope I did as well as I think I did because I really don't want to take this class again lol. Legs felt fine, I think I shook the long run out of them