Of course it's about running.

Well, maybe not quite a personal record, but improvement regardless. Here's what happened. Last Saturday at the weekly Team in Training workout I ran pretty hard with two other Teammates, and averaged just over 8 minutes/mile for the 8-mile distance. Pretty good. Then Tuesday a step back: Though Tuesday is a shorter run, it was my first day with new shoes, plus I started out hard, and soon had to slow due to complaining leg muscles. Not fun at all.

So Wednesdy the schedule called for 6 miles. To get through that without lots of calf and whatever-runs-up-the-outside-of-your-shin pain I decided to take it slow and steady, and pay attention to how I felt rather than my mile split times. My breathing was much better than Tuesday, my footsteps were much less "stompy" and I had virtually no muscle pain.

Since I wasn't obsessively checking my watch each lap I didn't push at the end to beat a time goal, but once I finished I was happy that not only had I run pretty well - about 8:12/mile - but felt pretty good afterwards instead of being exhausted. So while my run wasn't quite a personal best for the distance, it was close enough, and I felt good enough, that the slow and steady run was a success.