Training, March 20 through March 26

Greatest "accomplishment" this week: no doubles. As a result, despite running "only" 70 miles, I averaged at least 10 miles per run over the course of an entire week since...well, since Jesus was waving a rattle around, I think.

Today I did a fartlek workout disguised as interval training, or perhaps it was the other way around. This wound up being 2 x 0.5M, 4 x 0.25M and 2 x 0.125M in around 2:42, 77, and 37, all with a rest jog of 0.25M in about 10:00 pace. This is about all the indication I'll get that I might be ready to run in the mid-16s for 5K in mid-April. I will never be happy to be happy to run 16-anything for a flat road 5K even if I'm doing it when I'm 97, because to me the age-group shit is just one more form of handicapping and little more, with age-group competition an offer of booby prizes. That doesn't mean it can't be fun to race other wrinklyfuckers, but that's all it's going to amount to.

I have noticed my everyday pace continuing to come down with no conscious effort on my part. It's not unusual for me to click off miles in 6:30 range thinking until I check that I'm running at least 30 to 45 seconds slower than that. As encouraging as this may be, though, my goal isn't to run 6:30 pace with ease, or to continue lowering my glacial resting heart rate (36 in the middle of the day on Friday).

I will be traveling in the middle of the week and largely unable to do any work for a couple of days, so I will be trying to topple a bunch of tasks in the next two days that I would ordinarily do in...well, two days, except that I probably won't be able to screw off on Netflix and social media as much as I like to. So I will leave you a few recent pics of me running in unfamiliar areas and making new friends.