the road goes on forever...

A bunch of people from the track club did their last Boston long run today, so I joined them for part of it. It was a much-needed change of pace to run with other people.

2 easy, fartleked around for 3 miles, 1 easy. I enjoyed this no-expectations fartlek... I just ran hard for as long as I felt and then took however long I needed to recover. Sure it wasn't as good of a workout as intervals would have been, but sometimes a run you really enjoy is better for the body than one that is really hard. 

6 easy miles, with a half mile at 5k pace (it was supposed to be a mile but it was uphill and killed me!)

I had my oral defense today (of my written comps) and I passed, so I am officially a PhD candidate, and ABD (all but dissertation)! Yay! At least now I don't feel bad for letting my running suffer so much because of school; it makes it a little more worth it.

I have a 5k tomorrow, which at the beginning of the year I thought would be a chance at under 19 minutes, but because of school and other circumstances resulting in lack of training, I will now will be happy with under 20. But once again, my comps put this all into perspective and I hope just to enjoy the race no matter what. It's the second biggest race in Tallahassee and should be a ton of fun. I even have an after-race party to go to, and then an Easter celebration with my young adults church group. Should be a fun, busy day. Hope everyone enjoys their Easter weekend!

I accomplished all of my goals for this race: go under 20, don't be too hard on myself, and have fun. With my lack of training I was still able to run my second fastest 5k ever, which makes me really excited to see what will happen in the future when I have the time to train hard.

I attempted to recruit a bunch of girls to join in intervals and the track club, which will obviously mean more competition, but in most circumstances I'd rather run a good time than get a good place. I ran the entire race with Micah from the track club and it was a lot of fun, it almost felt like I was back on my college team. I also tried to recruit her and another girl on the track club to run the Disney marathon with me in January. It would be great to have people to train with!

As for race details, we ran negative splits, mostly because we went out a little too slow (6:26). I was okay with it though because I feel like I definitely used everything I had. The after party was at the Palace Saloon, and there was an after after party at a guys house, both of which were pretty fun, and I used to kind of celebrate my comps.  

Now I get to celebrate Easter with my bunny :)