Beautiful Day

Today was a great day. The morning was kind of dreary and humid with a little rain. Not too bad temp wise and a good time to head off to church. Enjoyed a great kids musical at Rhema and then headed to QT. When we came out of QT, the sun was out and I knew it was going to be a great day to get a run in.
Normally I would have opted for this, but temps were around 52 degrees with a light south wind and made for a great afternoon run.
I was able to wear shorts again for the first time in several weeks and headed out the door. It has been three weeks since the Route 66 Marathon and qualifying for Boston, so I decided to hit it a little harder for the first time in awhile. I decided to do about a 10 mile and throw in some Marathon pace miles. The following were my splits:

Mile 1: 8:06, feeling pretty good.
Mile 2: 8:02, cruising and decided to start picking it up.
Mile 3: 7:23, running good.
Mile 4: 7:08, definitely at Marathon pace.
Mile 5: 7:01, going a little faster than planned.
Mile 6: 7:16, really starting to feel the lack of speed work.
Mile 7: 7:22, I was hurting and decided to start backing it down.
Mile 8: 8:02, in recovery mode.
Mile 9: 8:04, a few hills on this mile.
Mile 10: 8:07, glad to be done.

It is amazing how easy it is get out of race shape. I have been swimming, biking, and running over the last three weeks, but without any speed work, it really shows. I am also about 7 or 8 lbs. heavier than I like to be. I chalk this up to Thanksgiving, slacking off after the Marathon, and trying new things in my diet. I have went back to some Paleo and switched back to Vegan. I am not for sure what works best yet for me, but I will keep trying.

I can honestly say that I am feeling more and more like a triathlete. I have been strictly a runner over the last four years and have added biking in the last year. Swimming has been a whole nother animal. Thanks to some good coaching from Duncan and tips from good friend Rob Chance, I have been able to improve to the point that where I think I can handle the swim in an 70.3 Ironman. I am still slow, but I have recently taken about 2 minutes off of my 1,000 yard time and I am actually at the point to where I can say that I look forward to the next swim. I have absolutely hated it, because I was not any good at it. Taking it up in my forties has been a real challenge, but I do not quit easily. I am eyeing the Lonestar 70.3 in April. It is the same weekend as the OKC Marathon, but I have done that twice and have already qualified for Boston. I think the beach at Galveston sounds pretty nice. Before too long, I will be swimming like this.