just another day in paradise

man.
these past few days have been pretty fantastic as far as running goes. i'm finally starting to incorporate some speedwork, which is exciting!

• monday i swam the beach channel in the picture, which was my first open water experience. it was nice not to have to turn around every 10 seconds, but the salt water definitely made up for it... i had a good time though.. it took me a little over a half an hour to make it down and back. i jogged for a mile on the sand when i was done, just to get my legs moving, but it wasn't a very pleasant experience.
• tuesday was the first day in a while i really felt up for a double. ended up doing 35 minutes moving pretty good in the morning and 40 in the evening including 2x5 min @ V02-ish. i also ran into a trainign group that meets on tuesdays, so i'll be joining them next week :)
• wednesday was 45 minutes with striders at the end. haha i guess i was moving pretty good becuase a guy started clapping when i was done and said "nice windsprints", which made me feel good about myself since i definitely wasn't sprinting. lol.
• today was just plain rediculous. i knew i wanted to do some sort of speed, but i couldn't bring myself to make up a pre-defined distance or pace. so i did a warmup for once, and just got back out there and started running... and next thing i knew i was hauling.... waaaay faster than i'd ever gone before for a non-interval workout. probably around 6:30 pace or so, maybe a bit over... either way, it would have been wise to slow down... after all, i already did my v02 for the week, and 6:30 isn't exactly AT, even on my best days... but i decided hey, i'll go with it for a while... it's summer, what's the worst that could happen? i figured it would probably last a mile or so and then i'd be toast anyways, so i'd learn my lesson and be done with it. for some reason though, it was a one pace day, and - despite my protests - it was gonna be 6:30's, take it or leave it... so i took it, lol.... for at least two and a half miles... closer to three i'm guessing by the timing of it.... yum! i did get a bit of help though, seeing as it started raining smack in the middle of my run, right when i wanted to call it quits... and of course that extra bit of adrenaline hit me hard and next thing i knew, vroom vroom! here we go again... lol

i have 3 weeks before my next real test. i'm running another 5k, and hopefully it will go better than the pie one did. this one's for mango's - much healthier lol. last year i got 3rd overall and they gave me a box made of mango tree wood that i now use as a whiteboard marker holder, hehe. hopefully i'll get another useful trinket this year :) who knows, maybe i'll win! that could be cool....

-jen

p.s. alex if you read this before you post next, what exactly is tendonitis of the nalga, and how in the world do you get it? isn't the butt pretty much muscle and fat? where does the tendon part come in to the picture? lol i'm impressed.