Felt Like I was Flying

I felt surprisingly good this morning. Got out early and did my 11-mile loop, followed by my 3-mile loop. The running was strong and smooth, and I felt like I could keep on going and going. That's the good news. Only one little problem: these things called chronometers. They time your activity, and when that time/duration is combined with a known distance, your running speed is determined. And that running speed on this day when I felt like I was flying, pretty much told me just the opposite: that I was grounded. So whereas, for these sorts of training runs, on a good day when I'm in really good shape I'd average around 7:30 per mile, and on a good day when I'm in decent shape, which is as good as I got this year, I'd average about 8 minutes per mile, and on a good day these days, I averaged about 8:20 per mile. A month or two ago, I'd be disappointed to run so slow when I felt so fast, but today I'll just have to take what I can get.

Since I did feel so good for today's run, I probably *will* run the Inland Trail Marathon this Sunday. I'd been leaning against it, but now I'm leaning the other way. It'll be slow, mind you. Very slow. But it would be nice to run a smooth, strong, pain free marathon, regardless of what the chronometer says.