week 3, workout ... um, 3?

Went to the park and back. I really should be adding more mileage, but I just had to know if I'd gotten any faster.

I experimented with pacing, switching around which muscles dominated my stride. As usual, I think I went out too fast, because by the last half mile, I was completely wiped out. I could barely stagger up the hill to my apartment. Not sore, not out of breath, no low blood sugar, just ... tired.

Actually, I don't know why my leg muscles were so worn out after those 3 little miles. I'm not normally this tired afterward. I did walk 3.5 or 4 miles, largely uphill, on Saturday ... but that was two days ago, I didn't feel tired yesterday, and I walk all the time anyway. I don't know what happened. I even went for a walk this evening and didn't feel recovered. I suppose I should eat some more dark leafy greens and lift some weights. Or something.

Time to park: 15 minutes.
Total time: under 35 minutes. Call it 34:45.

Yes, this is faster than before. It's still way too slow, but there is progress. Progress so incre-freaking-mental I could scream. I'm still not down even to 11-minute miles yet. What makes it worse is I know there will be days in the future with no progress at all, days when I will be going slower for reasons of training or exhaustion.

I am having doubts that I can speed this along to consistent 9-minute miles by June. 26 miles is a long way to go. Even 3 miles today was a struggle. But there's only one way to find out if I can do it -- keep going and see what happens. I'll know I've made real progress if I can do the run in 30 minutes, but we're not even close to that now. And even that's a long way from what I'm aiming at.

Total running distance so far: about 18 miles.