goodbye march, hello april

this week went so much better than last week. work was calmer and my training was back on. school, however, is nearing the end of the semester (hallelujah!) so it's going to be picking up over the next few weeks. even though i needed those rest days last weekend and actually enjoyed them, i was really glad to be back to training this week. monday is my spin day so i was back in class teaching. i could tell i had been off my legs for a few days, but they found their way pretty quickly. tuesday morning, terri, chris, and i went for some 800's. it feels good to do speed work, to push, to get quality running in. wednesday i felt it in class, but by thursday, i felt great. terri and i had a really solid 10 mile run on a cool, humid and misty morning. we were drenched with sweat and rain by the end of the run, a weird feeling when we were a bit chilly. friday, i took the entire day off due to a few things i had to do, one volunteering at a local 5k. this morning, terri and i met up for our saturday run. i almost don't call this a long run as they are about the same distance as my weekday runs. today we were going for 10-12, but of course ended up with 12. we ran our first 3 miles rather slowly and chatted with a fellow runner that we see often out of the longleaf trace. he's a man in his mid to late 60's who is about as dedicated as anyone. we enjoyed visiting. we didn't pick it up too much after he left us and had even commented that it was ok because we were both tired. then we ran into james. he ran up behind us at about 5 miles and ran the next 5 1/2 with us, and yes, we picked it up. did we mind? nope! you know, you think you're tired, but then when you just run harder, it is there! from that point on, our miles were around 8:30, some under, some a bit over. when james joined us, we were at a 9:42 pace, and we ended it with a 9:12 pace (i think). i wish we had started a bit quicker than we did, but i'm still pleased with how it ended up. monday, i am meeting with james to start organizing how he is going to work with me. i am taking him on as my coach! i'm very excited about this next step in my running and the results that i firmly believe i will see. i've been running for about 8 years, and while i've learned a lot from my peers and things i've read, i don't feel i have the knowledge and all the discipline it takes to get where i want to be. this is something i've never done before, so i'm sure i'll have lots to blog about in the coming weeks! for now, i'm going back to some homework and the final four.