Day 39

A good run today. I set out on the same 2-mile stretch I've been running on all winter and got to the end in 19 minutes. The effort was easy though my muscles were still a little bit sluggish--not sore, just lazy. I'd hoped to 'run back to the barn' like I did on Wednesday, but I wasn't expecting much.

I ran back in 16:07. Things were working well at that pace and I was surprised to see how much faster it was. Near the end, it was feeling more like a tempo run, though. 8:0X/mile for a tempo pace seems fine at this point. I can't go much faster because that seems to be the limit of my dog's trotting pace. He can go much faster than I at a sprint or gallop, but we haven't trained much together in that gear and he tends to get hyper and dance around directly in front of me. We're working on it, though, just short sprints so far. I honestly don't know how comfortable he'd be at 6-7 min/mile.
Perhaps he'll get faster at trotting as I get faster at tempo pace (hopefully).

I jogged until 47 minutes--I wanted to do hill sprints and that's how long it took to get to the hill. The snow and ice have retreated enough to bare a chunk of the road beside the locks. We did 2 8-ish second sprints, as full-out as possible, and it really felt effective today. I forget where I've read about this type of hillwork, perhaps Brad Hudson---I used to do longer slower hill repeats but then I read that a better muscular workout is very short and very hard. I quite agree! Later on, I can do the slower longer repeats to improve stamina, but I really need to get the message across to my neuromuscular system first and foremost. LOL Next week, I'll do three or four sprints.

Then resistance exercises. I'm quite happy with what I've done this week. Achilles is pretty much a non-issue now, knock wood! Must stretch everything tonight, though!

hmm....there's a tv program on right now called The Human Machine or something like that. Apparently, we get a whole new body every two years. I knew that cells get replaced regularly, but this is the first time I've heard it put quite so simply.