I ran so hard I still hurt

What a lovely day. Sun was shining, birds were chirping and I was feeling frisky (in an athletic, run fast sort of way). I ran the same route as Friday and as I headed toward the first climb, I decided to run this one harder to see how much I could improve my time. Recall from the post below that I ran ~4.5 miles in a little over 38 minutes (ok - I didn't confess the time). Today I ran the same course in 34 minutes and I cruised mile #3. The average was 7:33 min/mile. For a hilly course, spur of the moment go-fast urge, and zero warm up, I am pleased with the time. The hardest part about running faster that usual is....running faster than usual. The human body dislikes pain and usually insists that one stop inflicting pain on ones self. Must be that preservation of self thing. A hilly course tends to bring out the pain especially after you top a hill and feel like your are going to exhale a lung. Then you have a tendency to rest/recover (which in running is very hard to do without stopping unlike my cycling brethren). So to push yourself on a hilly course you must be willing to endure more pain and not cruise to recover on the flat and downhill sections. In MHO, I would prefer to run/race a flat course where you push yourself to the brink of exhaustion and then hold it just below that critical threshold where your legs turn to jelly and you feel as if you are breathing fire. Running the hilly course has a tendency to push you over that threshold which hurts even more and recovery is more challenging for each additional hill. I believe this is why I have not been able to break 1:30 in the half marathon cause the only one I run is the Mercedes. Nothing like a challenge!

I am at home now, legs still aching a little and I sure would like to take a nap. Unfortunately, it is 5:30PM and I am a terrible napper. Once I go to sleep during daylight, I don't want to wake up and if I do, then I am as grumpy as a grizzly bear. Better to just stay half awake and hit the rack a little earlier than usual.

Off to do daddy duty AKA taxi driver.