Off and running

For the first time in months if not a year I am finally feeling good about building my fitness and it's progressing in the right way. Given the fact I had 6 weeks off doing absolutely nothing back in July / early August. What has astounded me the most is my attitude and commitment to the getting the running shoes on and shooting out the door. I am hungrier to do this than ever before.

The pivotal moment happened during a 2 hour run on Sunday 8th Sept. I was apprehensive at first about going out for 2 hours as I hadn't been out for a longish run for some 5 months and given the fact a 10 mile run a couple weeks earlier had felt like a slog for the past  I didn't much like the thought of slogging things out and coming home in a bad mood. However on the contrary the long run turned out to be most enjoyable, the pace reasonable for a fat slow runner (avg 9:03 min/miles) but I had felt in control and the legs felt good. This was the most enjoyable run I'd had since getting back onto the roads.

Since that day things have been getting better and better. Weekly mileage and number of days running have been trending upwards (see table below). I am mixing things up on the trails and roads although I am preferring the roads for the majority of runs (I am a secretly closet road runner)

9/9/2013 – 9/15/2013:	43.0 mi	6:20:25	8:51 / mi
9/2/2013 – 9/8/2013:	33.4 mi	4:54:00	8:49 / mi
8/26/2013 – 9/1/2013:	23.5 mi	3:30:53	9:00 / mi
8/19/2013 – 8/25/2013:	27.7 mi	4:04:13	8:49 / mi
8/12/2013 – 8/18/2013:	24.3 mi	3:35:49	8:53 / m

One big difference that appears to be helping is simply running more and not making excuses to skip running. I ran every day last week and for the past 11 days I haven't needed a rest day. This period of training was always going to be about building base, recovery and getting the miles in. So far so good and I don't intend to take a rest day for the foreseeable future.