I'm Back (This Time It's Lane, and It's for Real)

I have neglected this blog for a while and that's been bad.

I have decided to can the math posts for now.  They take too long to write well to fit into my schedule on a consistent basis.  They may reappear in the future or not, we'll have to see.  Regular running updates will resume, starting immediately:

The past couple weeks have been interesting.  I put in weeks of 65.5, 29.9, 70.0, 50.2, and 26.0.  Why the inconsistency?  The 29.9 mile week was done in three days (I took 4 off due to no power and dangerous conditions: I wasn't getting any kind of quality sleep and was just trying to survive) and the 50.2 was the first week of a taper for my two goal races of the "season", the Hot Coco 5k and Jarred's Run (a 5k/10k).  I took second in the Hot Coco 5k and earned my first cash prize of $50.  I suppose I won't quit my day job.

I had anticipated a quicker race than actual materialized.  I had planned to stay comfortable the first mile and start picking people off in the second and third miles.  Instead, a pack of 4 ended up running at a pace that was fairly comfortable for me nearly the entire way and the race didn't break open until about half a mile from the finish.  I was caught a bit flat-footed but still managed to take second with a near-PR in 16:26.

Leading up to Thanksgiving morning, I had won the 5k at Jarred's Run twice, won the 10k once, and taken second in the 5k once.  I had decided on the 10k to try to break my relatively soft PR (35:11).  I assumed the race would be a lonely time-trial.  I started out quick, with one of my high school teammates who was running the 5k flying out of the gates.  I wanted to keep up with him and when he started to fall behind, I pressed on, passing the half-mile in 2:27 and mile in 5:07.  I knew these were too fast so eased off a little.  I got to the 2.5k mark in 8:26 and the 5k in 17:18, around 30 seconds ahead of my first 5k the previous year.  I had slowed down quite a bit and when I turned around I was surprised to see someone relatively close behind.  My mind somehow made me think the lead was only 20 seconds (unlikely...) so I really started to push myself.  I ended up putting the next 2.5k in 8:18 and the second 5k in 16:50 for a total time of 34:08.  I was really moving and pushing myself through the second half.  Second place came in around 37:50, so I don't think the estimated lead of 20 seconds was very accurate.  I decided to take the rest of the week off as if I had just finished a running "season".

I will write about the lessons learned from this summer and fall of training and racing soon.

Until then...

 Alex: cue blogging montage

I'm Back!

Whoa, two things happened for the first time in a while today: 1) I'm writing a blog post! 2) I went for a run!

Holy smokes, what am I doing? As far as the blog post goes, just finally getting back to it and ruminating about my running.

On the running side though, I think I am finally going to get back into it. I've said for a while now that I would get back into running when I felt that I really wanted to. So, finally it seems that has come. For a little while I have been wishing I could run more, but was frustrated by the amount of time that work took up. I finally came to the realization that I simply need to sacrifice a bit of sleep for it (probably not more than 1/2 hour a night), and that I think it will be worth it for the sake of my sanity and my energy levels (and my waistline...).

Besides, I am planning on running a Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving day, so I want to do more than just waddle through it. How good of shape can I get in over the next three weeks just running a few miles most nights? Probably not very, but it will be better than nothing. So, here goes.

Lane, if you would be so kind: Cue the training montage

~Alex

Training, Week of 10/23

Whoa.  That was a heck of a cut-back week.  I intended to let my legs catch up and recover a little from all of the work I've been doing over the past couple weeks (including a 7-to-54 mile/week jump) but I feel like I really turned the corner for this training cycle, both physically and mentally.  The over-all big picture numbers are as follows: 55.7 miles in 6:37:26 (7:09/mile average).  This really doesn't tell the whole story though.  Monday started with a relatively slow run, a bit under 9 miles at a bit over 8:00/mile pace.  From there, I took off.

I intended to do a long run that was less, well, long than usual this week to let my legs recover from that aspect of training.  The scheduled 12-miler ended up being 12.84 at 6:53/mile pace.  I don't usually run under 7:00/mile when I'm just out for a training run because I feel like it puts unnecessary wear and tear on my muscles, but I guess I just felt good.  Thursday's track workout was where things really started to go well, however.

The prescribed workout was 3-4 repeats of 5:00 each with 2:00 recover.  I joking said to one of the guys who is about my speed during the workouts that it would be about a mile and he agreed seriously, except that he was thinking about 5:10/mile pace.  I didn't think I'd be able to handle the full complement, but I decided to try to hold the pace as long as possible.  I ended up with mile repeats of 5:07, 5:09, 5:10, and 5:07!  Easily the best mile repeat workout I've ever done.  It felt great and I was riding a runner's high until after my next run on Friday!  Friday's run was equally awesome, 11.18 miles at 6:52/mile pace.  Then I took the day off (first in 27 days, 238.6 days) and ran an easy 5 on today (Sunday).

As I already mentioned, I felt like I turned the corner this week.  I had a great workout that showed I'm getting back in shape and I'm mentally "with it" again.  My legs and mind are remembering what it's like to be in good physical condition and even to attempt the impossible.  I know that breaking my 5k PR on the road on a rolling course in November and then smashing my 10k PR on another rolling road course less than a week later is impossible.  But running is about convincing myself to do the impossible.

Training, Week of 10/16

Running is going pretty well!  This week I ran 64.7 miles in 7:57:46 (7:24/mile average) and my legs kept going through a new milestone: 12,000 logged miles!  I got in a long run of 16.5 miles, a 8x600m workout, and a 5k tempo run.  I've come (somewhat) to grips with the existential crisis I was having with regards to my running career and am feeling confident as I move towards my next couple races.

As far as why I'm continuing to run, I have to admit that I still haven't solved that issue.  I'm no longer running for a team and I don't really have enough time to devote to truly pushing towards reaching my potential and those things were really frustrating for me before.  Now, however, I think that I've reached a mindset where those things don't matter as much, and although I may not know quite why I am still training a reasonable amount.

A Picture and a Thought - 1

"What was the secret, they wanted to know; in a thousand different ways they wanted to know The Secret.  And not one of the was prepared, truly prepared to believe that it had not so much to do with chemicals and zippy mental tricks as with that most unprofound and sometimes heart-rending process of removing, molecule by molecule, the very tough rubber that comprised the bottoms of his training shoes.  The Trial of Miles, Miles of Trails.  How could they be expected to understand that?" -Once A Runner, John L. Parker, Jr.

Training, Week of 10/9

Week 2 of my self-made training plan to beat my 5k and 10k PR's went very well.  I ran 61.4 miles in 7:31:05 (7:21/mile average).  Included in this week was a 15 mile long run (unfortunately on the treadmill) and two quality workouts (a fartlek and a tempo run).  There were times when my legs were very tired but it was better by far than last week so I'm adjusting to the workload.  I'm also feeling my fitness and speed come back which is surprising.

Although I've been running somewhat consistently throughout the entire summer, I had only done this much running at the very beginning of the summer before things really started to pick up at work and in my social life.  It feels good to be back in the hunt.

Training, Week of 10/2

I'm back on track, so to speak.  After a week almost completely off, I decided that it's time to get over the existential crisis that I've been having with regards to running, make a training plan, and then get about the business of breaking my 5k and 10k PR's.  I picked two races and did indeed make a plan.  Even better, I have followed it to a T this week, running 54.5 miles in 6:47:57 (7:30/mile average).

It was a tough week.  My legs were sore pretty much all week and my hip started tweaking out.  I know how to deal with both of these and keep going, so that's what I did.  I put in a decent long run, track workout, and tempo run so the quality is there while the quantity builds back up.  I'm back in the hunt and may even remind myself of the runner I was.  I have been feeling a little lost without a team or a "season" to race in but I recently heard my generation referred to as a "lost generation" and that is an identity that I refuse to accept.  So here I come, ready to show 'em a clean pair of heels.

In Like a Lion, Out Like... Well, You Know

Running: I ran 7.33 miles this week in 53:46 (7:21/mile).  It wasn't hard because I only ran one day (Sunday).  I decided to take it (very) easy this week because I was sick on Monday and Tuesday and wanted to make sure that I was feeling good enough before I started running again so that I didn't reset my recovery.

Writing: Didn't write another word.  I should have written more, I just have some sort of block about writing more in the month of September.  I am accepting failure on the 50,000 words in one month challenge, but I am going to keep the beginning of the story around in the hopes that I'll pick it up again and write some more.  I don't think that it was a complete failure because I think that I learned a bit about writing and I'm impressed with the amount that I did write.

So what's next?  I am going to break my 5k PR on November 19th.  It will be very difficult.  Everyone I've mentioned it to has said so.  I ran my current personal best (16:23.79) on a track while I was in probably the best shape I've ever been in.  I have sketched out an ambitious plan for the next 9-10 weeks and am determined to put the work in and take a shot at running under 16 minutes.  Then, depending on the results, I'll be running either a 5k or 10k on Thanksgiving.  And then?  I don't know.  I'll probably start trying to get into longer races.  Until then, I'm taking things one step at a time (no pun intended).  Only 491.3 miles until glory.

-Lane

Training, Week of 6/18 and Novel In a Month Update

Another dual-purpose post.  Hopefully I'll stop taking the easy way out pretty soon.  As far as running goes, this week was another low-ish week, mileage wise.  I ran 32.9 miles in 3:58:37 (7:16/mile average) which doesn't really tell the whole story.  As usual I started the week off well, on pace to run about 50 miles and even had a decent race on Wednesday (the local race for the United Way, I won in 16:59 and set a new course record).  When the weekend rolled around, social commitments made it very easy not to run.  I did get in a 3-miler with Dan and Alex which was awesome.  I miss having anyone to run with and I miss running with them especially.

As far as the novel, progress has stalled.  I didn't write a single word this week.  I will be attempting to restart both my running and my writing starting tomorrow (Monday) in an effort to have a strong finish to the month of September.

Training, Week of 9/11; Novel in a Month Update Super-post

Running this week:  I started off strong, but fell apart over the weekend, taking Friday and Sunday off.  I ended the week with 37.7 miles in 4:36:35 (7:21/mile average).  Not exactly a dumpster week but not great.  Brianna and I headed to Worcester for a medieval fair and didn't get much sleep over the weekend so although I have time to run on Sunday, I decided not to push myself too hard while I'm tired.  I've been invited to run with some of the engineers who run at work, so I'll probably start joining them at lunch, which will take some logistical thought in order to get my work done and run and not be at work all day.  Should be a nice change and will hopefully serve as extra motivation to get out and put the miles in.

The next corporate 5k is on Wednesday.  I should place highly and will need to run pretty quickly to help my team in its rivalry against the local shoe store.  I'm looking forwards to it.

Novel in a Month:  I'm behind.  I skipped a couple days and I need to be at 18,333 words to be on pace at the end of the night; at this point, I only have 10,707.  This means that if I don't get any writing done today (it's not looking promising...) then I will have to increase my average to 2069 words/day.  I don't know if I can do that, but I'm going to keep trying and we'll see how many words I can get in before the end of the month.  I have also decided that if I finish the story before the end of the month, then I'll stop writing.  I am 20% of the way through and I haven't finished setting the story up, so I don't know if I'll finish early after all.

-Lane

Training, Week of 9/4

This was a fairly good week in terms of training.  I had hoped to run all seven days, but didn't get out for a run on Wednesday because I procrastinated while allowing excuses to pile up until I finally decided to bag the idea of a run.  I'm a little disappointed, but in spite of that, I still managed to run 50.3 miles in 6:03:07 (7:14/mile average).

The Thursday Night Track work-out was a good one for me, a 25-minute tempo run.  I have always liked tempo runs on the track because they allow me the opportunity to know exactly how quickly I am moving and to break the effort up into pieces that are trivially easy to complete by themselves so I don't ever think of the effort in its entirety.  I planned on running a little faster than 6:00/mile pace which I translated into running 200m sections in just under 45 seconds.  In this way, I only thought about running for 45 seconds at a time.  Using this strategy, I averaged 5:48/mile for a total of 7k in 25:11.  There were a couple other factors that helped me to have such a great workout:

• The other people participating in the workout helped a lot.  Though there weren't any that could keep up with me, it eased the toughness of the workout to be able to pass people almost continuously through the workout.  I lapped the entire field at least twice, with only a single exception (he was lapped once).  As the group that attends the workouts are diverse in age, ability, and training goals, there were options to finish the workout at 15 and 20 minutes, and once those people had finished their encouragement also helped me to continue.
• My pacing was extremely conducive to having a good workout.  Although I had a couple quick laps at the beginning of the workout due to general excitement, I settled into a pace which gradually accelerated throughout the whole workout.  It is counter-intuitive, but accelerating when my legs are very tired helps me to continue at a quick pace.

Cooling-down from a tempo run that has gone well is difficult because I usually feel so good I still want to run really quickly, though I was able to hold myself back and only run 7:01/mile pace!

I had Friday off from work this week, which I decided to use for my long run.  Though I was a little apprehensive about running the tempo and long run back-to-back, I decided that Friday was my best bet and planned out a run that was 17.7 miles long.  Unfortunately the weather was quite a bit warmer than I expected and my stomach was upset so I cut the run short to "only" 15 miles.  It still served the purpose that I intended so I was happy.

I did leave my nice, cushy Nike LunarGlide 2's in Vermont so I have been doing all of my running in the New Balance Minimuses.  I think this has resulted in some extra soreness so I'm looking forwards to being able to add the Nike's back into the shoe rotation.  All in all, a good week and I'm looking forward to maintaining the momentum into the next week!

Training, Week of 8/28

This week was another “dumpster” week, with a total of only 26.2 miles in 3:12:44 (7:23/mile average).  I started the week off really well with a couple longer runs (one of which was a trip to the Reservoirs in West Hartford).  I then headed back to Vermont on Thursday night with my fiancé (skipping my regularly scheduled track workout).  I wasn’t feeling motivated to run on Friday, so I just ran 4.5 miles and then I was super busy on Saturday and it was raining on Sunday and the excuses just kept building and I ended up running far less than I should have.  I am a bit disappointed in myself but I’m primed to start a fresh week and put in some good miles.  I think I am going to focus more on running farther in the afternoon (rather than trying to add morning runs which has been a huge failure so far).

On the racing front, I have signed up for another corporate 5k and I have been put on a “stacked” team so that hopefully the company that I work for can compete against the local running shoe store.  It’s a little funny that it’s such a heated competition based on the sizes; my company has (literally) thousands of employees in the area and the shoe store’s employees number in the tens.  I suppose that they tend to hire people from two very different demographics!  Once again, I’m looking forward to helping my team and you never know, now that the college kids have gone back to school, I might even get a prize!


-Lane

Training, Week of 8/21

This week was an interesting one in terms of training.  I started the week off well with a couple medium-length runs until Friday, when I left Connecticut for New Hampshire and went on a hike with my cousins, uncle, and dad.  It was really fun (and you can read about it here) but I didn't get a run in.  I slept over night in the woods and then hiked back and did manage a 4-mile run in the afternoon.  Sunday rolled around and I was going to go for an easy 10 to get 45-ish miles for the week but got lost in the heat and ended up with a 16.2 miler for a total of 50.8 miles in 6:12:49 (7:21/mile average).

I'm glad I got the distance in for the week.  Hopefully I will be able to build on that momentum going forwards.  I've already started the next week out really well with a 10+ miler at the Reservoir Trails in West Hartford (more on that in about a week!).  Spoiler alert: it might be my second favorite running spot yet!

-Lane

Training, Week of 8/14

This past week was a good one in terms of training, though I took one day off and only ended up with 45.6 miles in 5:36:36 (7:24/mile average).  I started the week off well with a nice, slow long run on Monday (~14 miles) and I ran well on Thursday in the Corporate 5k Challenge in Hartford (4th place in 16:40) and helped my team to a 3rd place finish.  I also bought a new pair of running shoes (for my thoughts, see: New Balance Minimus Trail) and got a pretty quick ~8 miler in on Saturday.  A little more quality and a little less quantity than I would like, but I'll take it.

I pretty much used up what I would have said about how I'm feeling about running right now in an earlier post on motivation, so I recommend checking that out.  I guess my next challenge is to actually start getting up in the morning and running to put a few more miles in and then there's the next race sponsored by the company I work for in September!

-Lane

New Balance Minimus

I was in the market for new running shoes today.  My flats are getting older (~450 miles) and my other pair is nearing what I estimate to be half of their life (~150 miles).  So I headed to the store.

I ended up bring home the New Balance Minimus Trail.  Now to give some background information, I have been a little bit wary of the latest barefoot-running fad.  I haven't seen very many people who are faster than I am really committing to it and I haven't seen anyone who was slower than I am commit to it and pass me so I haven't  been buying into it.  To be fair, I am pretty much already enjoying the alleged benefits of barefoot running (quick cadence, low injury rate, mid-foot strike) so I can't really speak to the benefits to people who are heel-strikers and/or prone to injury.  In any case, I opened the box when I got home and found a warning to run only 10% of total mileage in the shoes.  To heck with that!  My first run in them was an 8.51 run over a hilly course on the roads.

All I can say is "wow".  They felt very light and despite the lack of cushioning, I didn't feel the pounding on my legs. They're like running in ballet shoes with a thick rubber sole!  My usually quick cadence (176 strides/min) upped a bit to 192 strides/min though that may have been due to the excitement of new shoes.  We'll have to see how I feel tomorrow.  In conclusion, I am not a convert to the cult of barefoot running as a cure-all.  I am already poised to take advantage of really light shoes and have been training in flats for a long time.  On the other hand, I do love these shoes and although I probably won't wear them every day, I will enjoy running them as much as possible.

What Motivates Me

What motivates me?  I find that this is an interesting question to explore because if I really take a hard look at what is really motivating me, not what I thought was motivating me or what I told myself motivates me, I can learn a lot about myself and hopefully that will lead to some self-improvement.

What motivated me to work hard when I was in school?  Impressing my teachers or making my parents proud wasn't a true motivator (though I am pleased that I seem to have done both).  Even the objective measures of success, grades, didn't really seem to motivate me too much.  The longer I was in school, the less I was upset by lower-than-usual grades even though I tended to improve throughout my entire scholastic career.  Continuing to dig deeper, I think that doing a good job, in and of itself, is what started me off.  Later, success became a "habit" and I was able to continue working hard on a particular task, even if it no longer interested me.

What motivates me to work hard at work?  I have had a number of jobs that didn't test me or fully utilize my skills, some of which I liked, some of which I didn't like.  Regardless, I wanted to do a good job and what I finally found worked as motivation was to find the co-workers that I cared about and work "for them".  Whenever I had to do an unpleasant, menial, or boring task, I would remind myself that the harder I worked, the easier and more pleasant my friends' work would be.  Hopefully they would reciprocate and work hard "for me" but I was okay if they didn't.  Now that I have a challenging job, I enjoy working hard to stretch my abilities and really utilize my gifts as much as possible.

What motivates me to work hard at running?  I used to train to run faster times, to place higher in important races, and to help my teammates beat other teams.  Those were easy reasons to find to get motivated to run when I didn't feel like it, when it was hot or cold or snowy.  Now that I'm out of college, I don't really have those reasons pushing me out the door and I really can't put my finger on what it is that keeps me running.  Racing with my co-workers doesn't really cut it for motivation and I'm not really finding it in myself to push the way I would need to to lower my times further.  Perhaps success at running has become another "habit" because I'm not sure that I could stop if I wanted to.  Perhaps there's something else there, but the thing I don't understand is that the discipline and hunger that I used to have is missing.  I have resolved a number of times to start running in the morning and have failed pretty much every morning.

What precipitated this introspection?  Strangely enough, it was a streak of recognition for success.  I was given an appreciation award at work for some work that I did and I also finished 4th in a local 5k in 16:40 which I believe is my third-fastest time ever (and fastest on the roads).  Now that I have shown what I am capable of, I suppose I'll have to keep it up.  One more piece of motivation!

-Lane

Training, Week of 8/7

This past week, there was some bumpiness at the beginning of the week and the long run got bumped until today (Monday) and so I only managed 40.3 miles in 4:51:56 (7:15/mile average).  The Thursday Night Track Workout went well despite the fact that I didn't feel that great.  We started an 800m repeat every 5:00 (6 in total) which creates the paradoxical effect of the faster people getting more rest than the slow people (I averaged 2:25-2:27).  I didn't feel that great, but I didn't feel worse as the workout went on.

During the workout, I did experience one of the hardest running decisions yet.  The guy who runs the workouts offered to time me and the other "fast" guy for a seventh interval.  I didn't want to because I was tired and my legs hurt and I was nauseous, but I felt obligated.  Eventually we decided not to continue, which I was very thankful for.

Now I'm looking ahead to the Corporate 5k to Benefit Special Olympics, CT.  I want to help Pratt win another team trophy and I think that there's probably going to be a trophy in it for me which is always nice.  Not to mention I get to hang out with the other runners at Pratt and Whitney, which is super cool.

Now on to a bigger and better week!

-Lane

Training, Week of 7/31

Not much blogging at all recently... I've been really busy and I'd like to go to bed reasonably soon tonight, so this post will be brief (but on time!).  I did manage to run 7 days this week, covering 51.6 miles in 6:19:11 (7:21/mile average).  The Thursday Track Workout went very well, a ladder from 200's to 800's and back down with two bonus 400's at the end.  Like the last workout I attended, I ran the final 400 as quickly as I could and again only managed to run in the 61-second range.  I think this workout was quite a bit harder, so I'm still happy despite the fact that I believe that I should be able to run under 60 seconds.

As far as total mileage this week, I started out well but my legs weren't recovering so the run length suffered towards the end, resulting in about a 10-mile shortfall.  I think that if my bad weeks can be in the 50-55 mile range, I'll be happy though and despite the fact that I put in 7 days I still count this as not the greatest week of training.  I've been hearing rumors of another corporate 5k on the 11th so we'll have to see if I get involved in that (I probably will) and how it goes!

-Lane

Racing?

I know that Lane gives weekly updates about his training (and, in fact, just gave one this evening), but I haven't been doing that for a couple of reasons. The main reason is that I really have not been running much or consistently this summer (or for a while for that matter). A bit of background: in December of 2009 I was at the start of an awesome indoor track season. We had our first meet and I had a huger Personal Record (PR) in the 5K (16:56). This was finally an indication that I was headed in the right direction. Training had been going excellently and I was pumped about the rest of the season. However, an issue arose shortly after we went home for our winter break. While out doing a hill workout my right knee started to bother me. The next day when I went running it was pretty painful, but I could still run on it. By the third day I could not run on it at all. It just felt like a knife was stabbed into the side of my knee. After a month, a bunch of doctor visits, and an MRI it was finally determined that I had IT band friction syndrome. Basically, the large tendon that runs from my hip down the outside of my leg to my knee was tight and was rubbing over a bone point in my knee, causing pain. That ended my season and set me up for the last year and a half where, other than a brief return in XC last fall, I have been either unable to run or slowly rebuilding fitness.

That brings us to now... I am currently back in the process of rebuilding fitness and trying to get both my knee and the rest of my body back in shape. The approach that I had planned on for this recovery involved focusing on slowly building a base back and avoiding speed work/racing. However, this recovery has not been going as smoothly as I would have hoped. The first reason for this was that at the end of May I was tapped to fill in on the first leg of the Vermont City Marathon. I figured it couldn't hurt to at least tempo the leg since my team wasn't gunning for an incredibly fast time, so I ran the leg (there goes the no racing bit...). The second reason is that I have been fairly inconsistent in my running, especially now that I have started work. Some days I just can't kick myself out the door when I get home, other days I simply get home to late.

Finally, that brings us to the real point of the post. Today, I ran a 5K race in a neighboring town. While my recovery plan was pretty clear that I did not want to do fast stuff or race, I also wanted to meet people around where I live who run. So, while searching for running groups I found a series of Tuesday night XC races nearby. I figured this would be a good way to meet some of the local runners. I headed up after work and found the park (which was really nice, I am probably going to go back just to do training runs). There I met a scene that was very much like the old Tuesday night XC races I used to run at the Catamount Family Center back in VT. I registered and got out and ran. I didn't run a great time (20:25), but I had fun, met a few people afterward, and got some pointers to websites to find other races and gatherings of runners.

So, with that race it seems that the best way to meet other runners around here is to go to the races. I figure that I should plan on attending a few of them over the next weeks and meeting people. Even if I don't race them all out, I can use them as training/tempo runs and a great chance to meet people.

Well, out with the no racing bit I guess, in with meeting new people and setting up a new life.

~Alex

Training, Week of 7/24

As promised, here is the weekly training summary only one day late (though it is quite late on that one day).  Although I promised Dan that I would run each day, I did miss a day due to a car accident in which I was fortunately unhurt.  Nevertheless, I did run 50.2 miles in 6:08:02 (7:20/mile average) with a 5k race in 17:07 in there, too.  As a point of correction, I only got 6th place at the race, but it was still good enough to help my new company take the prize!

Other than the race, this week was pretty much characterized by only two runs of decent length, a 10-miler and my weekly long run.  The rest were shorter and more restful.  It was a good start towards getting back into training, but it's a long way from where I'd like to be.  My long run involved taking a less direct route to the top of Castle Craig which is always a cool place to check out.  Plus, running to the top of a mountain in the middle of a 16-miler is never shabby.

The final thing that happened on the running front occurred over the weekend.  On Friday I was talking to my project manager and mentioned that I was only running about half of what I used to.  He asked how far I used to run and I mentioned that I had spent quite a bit of time running 80 miles/week.  I saw him in the parking lot on the way in to work and the first thing that he said was that that had stuck with him all weekend and that I must have a "life-long devotion to running".  At first I didn't like that characterization because I like to think of myself as multi-dimensional, but later I realized that he said I had a life-long devotion to running, not that I had devoted my life to running, which I think is true.  I think I'm starting to get a bit hungrier towards running success after this week.  We shall have to see what happens.

-Lane