My legs felt rotten yesterday. I think it's actually because I ran two days in a row on Friday and Saturday (for us non-runners, the eccentric contractions of running can be pretty difficult to recover from). But my rotten-ness didn't keep me from running. In fact, I did a blind time trial approximating my race distance. I left my watch in my mailbox while I hammered out three miles. The result? 20:09.

You might be thinking, "Not bad; just 10 seconds to shave off." But, unfortunately, it's more like 30 or 40 seconds to shave off. See, the race is 3.1 miles. If I'd tacked on a 160-meter sprint at the end, that would've truly approximated the distance.

On the other side of the coin, though, I'm not bummed about the result either. I didn't have any splits along the way (which I will on race day), and I have four more weeks to really tune my fitness. Also, I think I've learned that I need to adhere more closely to these rules I'm setting for myself and prefer recovery to increased volume. So that's what I'm doing today: nothing. I might do a little core work, but I'm going to give my legs a chance to recover before Wednesday's workout. Also, I'm going to put the weights aside for the next four weeks. I have a few more specific strength drills to perform over the next few weeks—with the intention of even slightly increasing my stride length. We'll see how it goes!

Some inspiration for the meantime: