I don't get it....................

How is that you can have an "easy run" at a 4 mile distance, and turn around 3 days later and struggle with 3 miles? I don't get it!

It has been said that there is no such thing as an "easy run", and I agree. Running is hard. It hurts, but it's worth it. At least that's what I tell myself when I'm struggling to put one foot in front of the other.

I did not break any land speed records yesterday, but I finished my 3 miles. It was my first training run doing intervals of 17 minutes running and then 3 minutes walking . Because I was adding two minutes of running and only adding 1 minute of walking to my intervals, I was expecting my average pace to improve, but alas, it did not cooperate with the numbers. I averaged only 14'53" for this 3 mile run. On my 4 mile run Sunday, I averaged 14'09"......I don't get it! I suppose every run is different, no matter what the distance.

As for the questions about why I'm going backwards in mileage (4 on Sunday; 3 yesterday), it's called training. The idea is not to go out and kill yourself each week and run double the mileage from the week before. Training for a half marathon, or any race for that matter, is a gradual thing. If you increase your distance or your pace by more than 10% each week you are very prone to injury. My knee is already starting to give me trouble just with the small increase in mileage over the last week of my training plan. People think that if you do not run farther or faster each week then you're not getting any better. FALSE! It takes years to become a distance runner, not weeks. Your mindset must be slow and steady wins the race; I'm not talking average pace here, I'm talking about easing into something rather than going all out and overtraining. If you do this, you will be sorry come race day.

I may not "get" a lot of things, but I do know that running is simply MIND OVER MATTER