AM - 8 miles going 8 mph the first two miles then increasing the pace by 0.5 mph every two miles, so i was running the last two at 9.5(so about 7:30 pace down to 6:18). on the treadmill, obviously. then did upper body weights and sauna after. kinda bummed that it being below freezing at 9am scared me into running at the gym because it felt super nice out leaving the gym. was very tempted driving home to stop at hilton park and run for another hour. i'm not naive to know i'm probably not in shape to do that right now, hopefully i will be soon though.
seems like as good a time as any to write a quick recap of my running this year with the hindsight goggles on. being how coming into the year i'd just done some crazy feats of mileage i'd never thought possible(30-mile long run, 3-day stretch going 30, 45, 30, and running 200 miles in a week, to name the highlights), i got a little too sure of myself and did 80 miles in two days then accidentally messed up my hips the next morning doing leg swings. if i had known that's what it was it probably would have meant a week or two off max and keeping most of the fitness, but instead i kept trying to run as much as i could, i'd get maybe 5 days of running in before the hips broke me down and id need a few days off. did that for about 6 weeks before getting frustrated and taking a few months off, and basically built my base back up from scratch, albeit probably under some stronger legs than i had building up last year from 18 months off.
this is the main takeaway when i view the year, having just jumped to this crazy level of fitness just to squander it, but really it's been a pretty good year, probably my second best after last year. i'll only be a couple hundred miles short of what i ran before, and looking at it in terms of running fast, this year was much better too. i think i was more excited last year to have ran 15 miles at 6:33 pace than when i ran 5:57 pace for 15 a couple months ago. lost some fitness the past couple weeks, but i think i'll be going into 2021 with just as much to be excited about as i did a year ago. plus, mike's back now so i can't be dogging workouts, it's not good for public perception :)
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