Step by step, mile by mile

AM - 5 before work at the gym + hips. knee felt fine but need a few pain-free days before i’ll start to forget about it

PM - 10 after work. last 200m in 40”. def the best i’ve felt the past 5 weeks; not perfect, but i didn’t expect to. still happy about it. having a budweiser while i do my post-run stretching; gotta get those carbs

sotd: eugene - arlo parks. no, you’re narcissistic 

AM - 5 at the gym. last heavy-rain day of the month so all my running today will probably be on the treadmill. at least it's only a 20-mile day. can't believe i just said "only a 20-mile day" and meant it

AM2 - 10 miles with a 3-mile progression in the middle in 16:43. first mile in 6:00, second in 5:38, third in 5:05. warmup and cooldown for 10. did a really solid lower-body weight session after. great session! finished all this before 8:30am so a great start to the day.

PM - 5 easy. felt good; knee was a tad sore, but i expected that with the weight session earlier. felt better over time which is the first time that’s happened since it arose(besides yesterday); it’d either get worse or just be the same level of annoying throughout. happy about that.

sotd: money folder - madvillian

AM - 5. felt pretty good.

AM2 - 15. ran 13.1 at hilton park because i thought saying i ran a half marathon warmup sounds ridiculous, then drove to the track to do 8x100m but there was a five-o right by the entrance who gave me hell, i thought about saying how the entrance was open and i've ran here at least 100 times and the coaches have even locked up the track while i was still running and told me to hop a fence to get out once i was done, but i remembered last time i argued with a cop about where i was running(at hilton last november) he threatened to arrest me so i just ran the other 1.9 easy. thank god for tuscaloosa police keeping madmen like myself off the streets

PM - 5 miles fartlek. when i say fartlek, it means striding out every couple of minutes, nothing genuinely hard. i've said it before and i'll say it again, fartleks get me into shape better than anything else.

sotd: sloppy toppy - travis scott

AM - 5. four day streak of waking up at 3:30! it’s getting easier every day

AM2 - 20 miles, i'd say it was probably the easiest 20 i've ever done. anyone who's run 20 miles knows they aren't ever easy, but mentally it went by fast which makes a run that long a lot easier. picked the pace up at the end of the last mile, then as soon as i stopped i started feeling woozy and weird and all that fun stuff, only other time i've felt like that post-run was the 30-mile run, it's like i stave off the tiredness and pain and then it hits all at once as soon as my body knows it's done running. quads are pretty sore, but that's about it. haven't felt the knee problem at all for the past 3 runs which i'm super happy about considering before that i never had a run where i didn't feel it post-strain. if this doesn't aggravate it either that's a great sign. probably could have gone even longer if i had any reason to, probably not 30, but then again i didn't think i could run 30 until i finished that run.

PM - 5 after work. absurdly windy

AM - 5. ended my streak of waking up at 3:30 by waking up an hour late when my alarm didn't go off, the fact that if you set a timer on an iPhone while it's on vibrate means it won't go off is poor product design. like what, do they expect people to be hiding from a serial killer but also need to know when their casserole is done cooking? get the hell out of here

AM2 - 20. first 5 miles were a little slower then started feeling good for the rest of the run. even picked it up a bit the last mile, felt really good speeding up when i'm that many miles in, it just feels so natural. i think this might be the first time i've done 20-milers two days in a row. good stuff, plus i don't work today so i can get some better recovery. already set the bar for highest mileage week this year!

PM - 10. felt good on the run, alright after; i did start it a bit earlier than usual so that might be why. just need to power through tomorrow and hopefully recover during work on saturday and this will easily be one of my best weeks of running to date.

AM - 5. legs felt beat up, but after the shakeout, stretching and rolling they feel better.

AM2 - slow 10. was going to do 20 again but stopped after 7 miles to take a leak and could tell my legs were still beat up enough that i'd be breaking myself down more than getting more fit. probably should have stopped there but did another 3, i'd say the PM run tonight is 50/50. these last 5 days were good enough that i've really gotten everything i need out of the week; coming back next monday ready to build on that fitness is more important than cranking out a few more miles

gonna take another couple days off for the knee. it’s progressed from painful when i run before my break in january, to getting sore when i run before my break last week, to not feeling it all when i run but getting tight after. not sore or painful like before, but i’d rather just take one more break to get rid of it again and up my training a little slower; i think the pressure of racing in early april made me keep trying to go full throttle too fast and making it harder to get rid of. so i’m gonna dead those races and  just try to get some summer races in and go from there. see y’all around tuesday probably