Run 4 Fun

Lately I have been feeling like blah, really blah...Usually a good easy run lifts my spirits but what do you do if you feel burnt out from running? Now, that is a difficult situation to be in. I have to really re-think my running situation. I have not run River-Oaks long run in over 2 months. For last 2 months, my running mileage has been 15-18 miles or so. And, I know that I have hit a plateau and a point of diminishing returns. In a race on a decent day, I can run 19 minute 5k or 40 minute 10k effort but it feels very hard. I can push through it on my will but my system is stressing. Probably this is the reason why it hurts so much. I have also noticed that my aerobic system is most stressed. I don't feel any pain/tightness/soreness in my legs. Even at that effort, I am definitely running below my lactate threshold but it becomes very hard to breathe and keep going. So, right now the bottleneck seems to be the aerobic capacity. Jay says that I don't need speed work but slow l

Yesterday, I couldn't be happier to say the least. I ran my first sub 19 minute 5K race. I went into the race with a plan and the plan worked like charm. Running wise I had two goals for this spring and I achieved both of them. 40 minute 10K and 19 minute 5K. Although, I was surprised that 10K goal fell in place sooner than 5K goal but you can't complain, ;) For 5K yesterday, the idea was simple. Both David and I agreed on more of less even pacing. I had run a 5K race few weeks back with a hangover and hit first mile at 5:48. Ouch, needless to say that the race went downhill from there. Hanging onto a pace in a race is easier said than done. And, 6:05 min/mile pace is plain brutal to hang on for more than 12 minutes after first mile. Yesterday, the first mile marker came at 6:05. I would have liked flat 6 minute mile but I just ran with David. I modulated my pace so that I am just a foot ahead of David to do my duty as pacer for first mile. Then, it was the turn of David to tak