Four In A Row

For the first time in quite a while, I ran for the fourth day in a row tonight. Not a big deal, you say? Maybe not. But, I've come up with excuses not to run that extra day so far this marathon training season, and I failed to find a way to skip it tonight. Those 2 recovery runs each week are important in having some easy miles for both musculo-skeletal and cardiac reasons, and I know this. But, it's easy to not do everything we're supposed to do, too. :-)

For the last three weeks, I've slowly reintegrated the full number of gym visits back into my weekly routine, and equally slowly, I've added first one, then two recovery runs as well. For now, I'm just running for a number of minutes without regard to distance on those runs, which works easiest for me in the 'Hood. I figure by the first week in July, I'll be up to the regulation 7 mile recovery distance, and I can start meeting my friends down at Town Lake for those very entertaining easy runs, full of conversation. For the time being, I'm adding a few minutes a week to the runs.

Tonight, I scored 5.6 miles, just over 52 minutes, a relaxed 9:17/mile pace. HR info was solidly in the happy recovery zone, and it seemed cooler out there this evening. Summer solstice and all, it was maybe 5-10 degrees cooler due to the wave of rain events that we've enjoyed these last couple of days. I'm looking forward to a day off of running tomorrow (but a gym visit, of course), and then it's Mountain Bonnell for the first time in a while.

So far, this has been a very good workout week, and I can tell that I'm starting to climb back into shape. I'm being patient about all of that, but as long as I continue to do all the right things, the running will come back to me.