You get what you ask for

Last week I did increase my miles and the amount of days a week I run.  I ran 21 miles, which is up from my average of 16 miles a week for the month of February.  And as much as I hate to admit it, it made me sore.  My back, my legs, my feet.  I definitely need new shoes.   I ran Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday during the week and Sunday and Saturday. 

I'm not exactly sure why I am increasing my miles and days running.  I have been pretty comfortable with what I have been doing and I'm not training for anything.  I guess I would like to be faster.  I'd like to PR my 5k time, which right now is 24.11.  That is a 7.48 average pace.  Ugh!  That means that the DASSH 5k I just did I definitely would not have PRed unless I had gotten faster, not slower in the last mile.  Ouch!  I'd also like to PR my 10k this year, that is currently 56.37, which is 9.07 min/mile average.  I think that one is doable. 

I guess when I look at my fastest times, they are all from 3 years ago when I was running more.  I was averaging 25 miles a week.  I wasn't working on speed, wasn't doing hill repeats, tempo runs or anything to actively work on being faster, I was just running the same hilly routes that I run now, just longer and more often.  I was also 3 years younger (does that make a difference?) but I was around 10 lbs heavier (does 10 lbs make that much of a difference?). 

Is it worth it?  Do I care what my PR's are?  Do I really want to?

I don't know the answers. 

I'm not currently increasing my long runs.  Right now I'm at 8 miles and I'm okay with that, although my route is kinda boring.  But if I'm going to increase my midweek runs I decided to only increase that . . . you know, the whole thing about increasing slowly to prevent injury and all that.  I think after this week, maybe next week, I see how I feel after running 5 days a week again and reevaluate, either increase one day (probably Wednesday as that's only 2 miles right now) or go back to what I was doing.  I'm going to get new shoes this weekend and that (I hope) will help with my feet being sore, and should get rid of the beginnings of shin splints that I'm experiencing. 

Yesterday's run was nice.  I am liking that it's still sunny when I get home.  Of course, that will all change next week when the clocks move forward.  =(  Yesterday I was able to do an entire 4 mile run while the sky was still light.  It wasn't raining, and I wasn't been blown all over by the wind, although it was a little windy.  My average pace was 8.50 min/mile, which is pretty good right now for me.  And I didn't come home feeling like it was too hard, plus I listened to an audio book instead of music.  Music always makes me run faster, but lately I've been wanting to enjoy my runs, not die from them so I've been putting a book on.  Tonight's will be faster, especially since it's only 2 miles.

So this just happened . . .


Missing are the mini cheesecakes, coconut cream pie and
brownie thing, plus random muffins that were already eaten.

Chocolate and red velvet muffins

A coworker got hungry and wanted sweets.  I ate the two half muffins on the bottom, plus a bite of a coconut cream pie, and 2 bites of a coworkers caramel brownie thing.  Maybe my run should be longer than 2 miles, I don't think that's going to be enough to work off all the calories (including the Danish I had at Starbucks this morning). 

I was bummed that we didn't have donuts at the staff meeting this morning.  I think this makes up for it.

**Update**
Someone came along and did this . . .

That's a free 3 day pass to LA Gym, there's one under each of the three boxes of pastries in the break room.  =)