I can run faster

All of a sudden I feel 110% back into running. During the two months of running very little while injured, I thought I would never reach the point where running felt awesome, but alas, that point has come.

Over the past three weeks I have increased my weekly mileage smartly and totaled this week at 26 miles. And on top of that, I feel strong in all of my runs. Take Wednesday for example... my coach wanted me to run 2 continuous miles as fast as I could to get a baseline for pacing future workouts, so after a warm up, I hit the track for 8 laps of hard running. Gosh it felt good to hit a pace that I knew I could hold for 2 miles and look down at my Garmin and see a sub 8 minute pace. Mile 1 = 7:52, mile 2 = 7:48. This was a wake up call for me. It was a way for my legs to tell me, "Hey! We can go fast! Let us! Push harder and we will do the work!"

Yesterday's 9-miler was another confirmation that I have my running legs back. I averaged 9:18 pace, but felt so good at 7.5 miles that I picked it up and ran the last 1.5 miles at a 8:25 pace. Time to start pushing the envelope.

It may be just a coincidence, but I receive two new pairs of shoes to test out right when my runs started to feel good again. I got a pair of Mizuno Wave Rider 15s and a pair of Mizuno Precision 12s and I'm pretty in love with those Precisions. So light! I've been a loyal Brooks Launch wearer for the past 5 pairs of shoes and they have been great, but I'm afraid to admit that I'm having a little affair with Mizunos right now.

Yay for running fast(er)!

Precisions on the left, Wave Riders on the right