Day 15

Yesterday was a rest day.

Today, I jogged 40 min with the dog and did resistance exercises. The run was ok. I feel a little fatigued, but not so much as yesterday--that's probably due to the tougher run on Saturday. Sad that 1/2 hr @ 9-9:30/mile is a tough run these days, but at least it's still aerobically easy. It'll just take some time for my muscles to catch up. My iron stores are probably still low, but I'm taking about 90 mg of supplements with vitamin C (it helps absorption), plus eating red meat pretty much every day. Hopefully, I'll feel the benefits soon.

At any rate, I'm feeling tired, but not joint-achey! Today I felt like I used to the day after a tough run, which is sort of true. It didn't feel like I was already in the midst of a long run, three or four hours into it. That a big improvement.

I focused today on keeping my breathing easy and unimpaired within my body (no holding or clenching). It was mostly a comfortable 4-4, which was encouraging. When I had more joint/muscle pain, somehow most runs were 2-2 though I wasn't moving fast or feeling aerobically strained--I think moving such fatigued muscles required that much oxygen. Today was the first day I was in the 4-4 zone. It's a useful zone so I'm happy. I picked it up near the end. It's still surprising to me how much faster I can move and yet stay within the 4-2 effort...faster is relative, though! I also tried to keep my ankles relaxed, not so much flexing.

Tomorrow I'll jog for 15-20 min, easy. I'll see how keeping 'hard' days to 40 min feels this week; maybe next week I'll move to 45 min on one run. Will see!

The more pressing matter is that of Winterman...I should decide soon if I'm going to try to move down to the 5K, or if I'm just going to forgo it altogether. I'm more tempted to do the latter. I was the 2nd woman in the (rather small field) marathon last year; it'll be interesting for my pride to accept being in the middle or end of the 5K race this year. That might be a good place to start, a solid way of ditching all my previous PBs and the expectations attached to them. On the other hand, I am still recovering, still attempting my own thing, and haven't even rejoined my run club, much less racing. But on the other hand, I would like to participate....maybe the solution would be to lose myself in the back of the pack and just enjoy a 1/2 hr of communal exertion, if not chatting.

At any rate, I feel like I'm recovering!