Training Secrets Divulged

Woke up at 5:30 and there was pitter patter of rain against the window glass. Woke up again at 6 and there was conspicuous silence. It was hard to get up but worth it, as running with Erin was vastly preferable to a later run on the hamster wheel.

The run with Erin was, well, a run with Erin. We looped around the UC sticking to stroller friendly streets. Talk was the pointy-headed banter of yore. It was wonderfully mild. Ran about 5 1/2 with her and set off to get more mileage post-Erin when the sky opened up. I scampered home and settled for an easy day, which was probably a good thing.

Joseph asks how I would classify my run from yesterday. Any classification would be a posteriori, as my main reason for running this was as a gauge of my fitness. My Tuesday and Thursday runs are usually hard efforts - track, tempo and the like - and this was definitely a hard effort, probably most closely resembling a tempo run but also could be seen as a time trial. A tempo trial? As I write this I think about how much of my training goes by feel. I've had more structured coaching regimens, but have never performed much better under them. So aside from the two-hard-workouts-and-a-long-run weekly structure, my training is largely improvisational. Like jazz, perhaps.

6.5 miles, time known only to God.