Iron Girl Redemption

     Iron Girl did make it up to all of us disappointed women who did not get to compete this weekend. We got an email that we could choose to have a discounted entry into next year's race or choose to receive complimentary entry into another Iron Girl event for this year. Since my husband and I are moving to Utah in two weeks, I decided to try for the one in Denver, Colorado in August, so I will continue to keep my cycling and swimming training up for that. 
     However, right now I am focusing solely on running, trying to increase my distance. I ran 7 miles yesterday, which is the farthest I have run in over 2 years when I did a half-marathon. I felt really proud of myself for that, but then today I ran 3 miles and was planning to focus on speed. Well, speed was not happening. I ended up with a 9:40 mile at the end! That is more and half a minute per mile slower than I usually run a 5k. What's up with that? Am I slowing down because I'm adding distance? Were my legs tired from yesterday's run? I don't know, but whatever it is, I don't like it. I am going to start adding some speed work to my training soon. Hopefully, that will help. 
     So, anyway, I don't have a race on the horizon simply because I don't know how my running endurance is going to change with the altitude when we move to Utah, but as soon as I feel comfortable, I will be signing up for races there. For now, I'm just going to focus on training, packing, and spending time with my family before the big move.

I read this after my run yesterday and it made me happy because there is truly so much joy in running, even if I do get bogged down with the numbers sometimes. Thought it needed to be shared...