The road is long... with many a winding turn

 Over the past several years, I have used this phrase with more and more regularity:  "Never did I believe that I would be working so hard to run THIS slow."   I keep hoping that one day I will run fast again.  Sadly, today was not that day.  The other thing that I have noticed is that I have not felt very fluid when I am running fast.  Something always seems to be a little off.  Perhaps it is because the amount that I have been running in the past few years has decreased, or maybe I just haven't put myself into that uncomfortably fast pace often enough. 

Today was a tempo run.  It was supposed to be a tune-up race between 8-15k.  Because I could not find a race, and life was too busy to accommodate, I decided to run a tempo, trying to simulate a race.  I have never been particularly good at this, as I have a hard time pushing myself hard enough in a non-race setting.  Some things never change.  As I started on my warm up, the warm sunny weather that we were having disappeared quickly, and I started feeling the first few drops of rain.  What else is new?  I was better prepared for this today, wearing a wind vest, so I decided to push onwards and see if it let up or didn't get any worse (thankfully, it stopped).  Because of the Ling weekend activities, I was doing this run in Olympia, while Ryan was getting his baseball coaching.  The route was anything but flat and straight, but, since Boston is neither, it wasn't a big deal.  I used to think I was a good hill runner, but lately, it seems like I lose an awful lot of steam when the road turns up.  Anyway, I ended running 6 miles tempo at 6:51 pace.  I chose not to look at my watch, except to make sure that I ran enough.  My plan was to run around 1 hour total and I finished in 59:25, so at least I timed it correctly.

I keep hoping that things will start clicking soon.  I would even settle for April 18th.

Addendum:  Ryan's recital went very well.  Apparently, all of the extra practice (and angst) of the previous week paid off.  He appears to be someone who can put it all together when the pressure is on.  I don't know if that is a good or bad (does it make him more likely to wait until the last minute?) trait to have.