Slowly Getting Faster

I took Sunday off because I was still feeling pretty weak after saturday's attempt at 13. I was pretty tired after work today so I was skeptical about how my performance would be tonight. I decided to take it easy, put in some distance but not push to hard.  I ran 8.77 and managed to finish in under 9 min miles, which after Saturday I'm counting as a win.  I think I have also raised the bar on the number of miles I should be running in a day.  

It says 6.02 miles easy, but that isn't quite accurate.  However, neither are the other designations so that is where I put it. It was really more of a 6.02 mile slightly easier than planned marathon pace, but also harder than easy pace. When I finished tonight I was reminded of the old adage "go slow to go fast." I forget a lot of the time that I don't need to kill every workout in order to get faster, I just need to get my volume up and occasionally kill the workout. I started to feel some twinges in my knee tonight, which is a sign I'm pushing too hard I think. Nice and easy, or at least moderate, for the rest of the week I think. 

These really were easy miles.  It was a tough uphill slogg in a couple of spots but other than that pretty mellow.  The hardest part was running at night on a trail.  I need a headlamp.  

This was 2,000'+ of elevation gain around the mountains by my house.  Pretty nice run and I am happy to find that I can actually get 2,000 feet of elevation gain this close to home.  By the end of this my legs were shot.  I will be doing this run many more times before El Vaquero next year.