Training, week of June 5 through June 11

This week, I ran 61 miles. More important, the bugs emerged in earnest, it got really hot toward the end of the week, and I was again content to just punch the clock on my runs. I visited the track once but didn't really do enough faster running to call what I did a workout, so no details of that adventure will be given here.

I'm appreciating the fact that excuses I used to think made a vague sort of sense to less dedicated runners make exquisite sense to me now. Over the winter, when it was cold and windy (but virtually never as extreme as it got in New Hampshire during some of my best running years), I'd go out in such weather, but wouldn't do anything hard even though once I was warmed up it wouldn't have mattered. Now that it's pushed well into the 90s, I'm actually happy to have an excuse to go easy, even though if I cared to I could wait until nightfall to drop in a tempo or some intervals.

I therefore remain in a perpetual stand-off between finding it adequate to just be running 60+ miles a week and believing that this is taking the low road.

I'm going to have to jump into some more races before I can really train seriously because this alone will provide a needed fitness stimulus. This inverts the usual, practical performance-oriented model but is not unheard of.