Believe to Achieve

First time I felt sore in over 5 weeks after running.  Seriously.  The hill work on the mill with ZERO drop shoes worked my legs good yesterday.  That was 5.25 miles of 4-6 percent grade at a moderate pace.  Zero drop shoes and hills make it so your heels have to stretch further to touch the surface.  I mostly run on my forefoot to avoid that.  My quads WERE slightly sore as well until I started running today and it ALL went away.  I felt AWESOME the first 9 miles.  Took my last of my Caffeine Gus (remember I don't do well with Caffeine but had just one left to get rid of) just after mile 9 before the last big climb in Alpine.  I ran the same loop as I did two weeks ago (FIVE CITIES RUN : D) and ended up slightly faster even though I thought I would be slower due to the harder workout yesterday.  My first mile was 8:28, not my traditional over 9 pace for a LR (two weeks ago  I opened with a 9:17 mile).  But today it felt easy.  I wore my new Brooks shoes that have a 4mm drop.  It was nice to have the extra cushion today that the zeros don't on the heel.  Most shoes are 12mm drop however so these new ones are close to the ground : D.   This was my first time running or even wearing them but they felt so good that I didn't notice they were new.  At mile 7 I had to erase data again so as to not lose data today.  I forgot to download my garmin on the computer so I could erase all the data and get recent entries to be on my garmin.  Dang...so I had to erase some good runs from the summer.  Oh well.  They are on my blog so that counts.  At mile 12 the ETERNAL WATER FOUNTAIN was like an ICE SCULPTURE but there it was steady and strong flowing away.  So yay WATER!!  I was surprised too that the potties were open at the park there so YAY POTTY!!  It is hard to duck in the bushes in broad daylight (I left at 9:56am) so that was nice to have that before my fast finish.   Ran one more mile with a nice climb then started my fast four again at mile 13--- the pace was pretty darn close to two weeks ago-- 6:48 (6:47), 6:45 (6:44), 6:40, (6:41),and  6:37  (6:36).   Last cooldown mile to my house- 7:20. Funny huh?   AP today was 7:47 for 18 miles (7:50 two weeks ago).     For taking it easy I think that was pretty good.  I felt really strong.  However,  I wasn't wanting to run fast and had to slow again at the light up in Cedar Hills and actually turn left (needed to go straight) to wait for the light to turn green on my first fast mile which made me have to keep looking back at the traffic and the light to tell me when I could do a U-turn.  Not bad I guess on tired legs.  Going easy before work tomorrow.   My miles are down the last few weeks for a special treat to myself from all the 70+ milers I put in in December.  I am not sure about Painter's half.    Most of it is on the city trail and I get dizzy in enclosed areas booking it so I will try my best to get a 1:30.  Maybe I should just run with the 1:45 pacer for fun  : D.