Back At It

My cold has abated enough that I ventured out today for a measly 3 miles, but it felt pretty good actually. About a year ago I decided never to run slower than 10 minute miles and after Tokyo I made a similar decision never to run slower than 9 minute miles. Today's pace of 8:40 felt pretty easy. I suppose there are those out there that would say that it's somewhat arbitrary to make a decision like that but it's my way of trying to continually lower my average pace. Since I'm shooting for 3:30 in the July marathon (Foot Traffic Flat Marathon) I need to get to the point where 8:00/mile isn't much of a strain. Otherwise I'll have a pretty challenging time maintaining that for the whole marathon. I plan to go to my first track workout this coming Tuesday - I've been putting it off because the workout I want to join is put on by a group of people I don't know. I'm sure it will be fine once I go a few times but the anticipation of that first time is intimidating me.

In non-running news, a gas station attendant put regular gasoline in our diesel Jetta last week. It was supposed to be biodiesel, which is why we got the Jetta in the first place, but somehow he ended up putting regular gas in there. Gasoline + Diesel engine = bad news/tow truck/large repair bill. I now have the enviable task of trying to get the service station to pay the bill.

Today's mileage: 3 miles, 26:00, 8:40/mile, avg HR 141