Shan, guess you know what it feels like. Not sure I'd ever describe speedwork as fun, especially if you don't warm up or cool down Another poor self control day. 6 miles with some work buddies at just under a 9 minute pace. High HR and some knee soreness after two speedwork sessions back to back. Maybe I need to roll out the "Stupid" run category. I've got to commit to some slower easier workouts.

Bugs- that IS nice pic. Dusting someone while he's grimacing and you're smiling on a hill - that's a keeper. Brian - sometimes you just have to blow the carbon out of your system with some intensity. If you're not doing specific training that gets set back by too much intensity and as long as you don't get injured, sometimes you just gotta say "what the heck" and run fast. Just be careful. Oh, and morning runs are great in the summer. Nobody's going to be home tonight so I'm doing my run this evening. If it's not raining too hard, I'm going to do a track workout. If it's storming, I'll hit the TM for 4 or so. There's a local race on July 4th, actually they have a 5k and a 10k. Last year I did both and did fairly well. Racing two races back to back (hilly courses too!) was really intense. In the resuslts, they had me listed in the wrong age group. Here's the kicker - they give awards 5 deep (just ribbons) and I would have gotten some hardware had I been listed in the correct age group ( I beat #5 by almost a minute). I really really liked doing back to back races like that. In some ways it was more intense than a HM. This year I'm thinking about skipping the 5k and just doing the 10k in hopes of some hardware. I've never gotten hardware before.

Shan, Sounds like you need a hot bath and early bed time...uh think I may prescribe the same for myself. Was clearing the trail through the woods tonight, and found a trail my neighbor had already cleared a trail along our border. Ran it with the kids, like a dream. Never even knew it was there. Should be able to run on it. Shin probably could use some soft running.

Did a track workout last night! It was AWESOME!. I've done a few here and there but have never had a steady diet. They're a big part of my schedule this time around. Basically I'm alternating medium/long runs with some tempo work one week and interval training the next for the bulk of my schedule. Last night I did 8 x 400s. The first few were WAY too fast mostly because I don't have much experience at running a given pace on the track. It wasn't until the last 3 that I got my pacing correct. As I was on my last interval I made eye contact with a woman with an unspoken "This is tough". She said "I don't know how you do so many!" and that made me feel pretty studly.

Did a track workout last night! It was AWESOME!.

I'm glad you like them, MrI, because I can't say I look forward to them much Seriously though, it sounds like you had a great workout. Painful crosstraining yesterday and 4.5 for me today in sweltering, sticky, humid heat. I stepped back from the paste jar and had a very nice 144 avg HR run.

Dave - why was cross training painful?? painful does not sound good!!

Just more of the crossfit training (http://www.crossfit.com/). Yesterday was 1000M Rowing, then 25 burpees, 750M rowing, 50 burpees, 500M rowing, 75 burpees. (a burpee is sort of a jumping pushup, google it if you're curious). Took nearly an hour for me since I was so smoked after the first two sets. Good news is I wasn't really that sore and was able to run today.

Ok, now I'm paying for the track session and may not be looking forward to them as much in the future. My legs are pretty fried. Either I ran it a bit too hard, did it too soon after the race or a combination of those two things. Shortened my run this morning and did 4 slow miles.

Brian - CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And there are no boring details!!