What are you reading again?

My technique of "distance push, let legs recover, longer distance push next time" is working! I did 8.2 miles this morning in just under 82 minutes. My last run was 6.5 miles on Saturday. Sunday I was too sore, Monday I was too sore, yesterday I had a database migration that started at 5:40 am, so I couldn't get in my morning run (or even my morning shower).

I'm hoping my legs recover by Friday and I can push for 10 miles, but we'll see. If not, gunning for Saturday.

Since this approach is working, I think I'm going to keep it up for as long as it keeps paying off, then I'll think about mixing it up with some gym cardio activity.

Oh, fitness/muscle/injury notes:

* Left hamstring continues to behave igneously. I think sleeping with the leg straight *helps*, but isn't a cure.
* Left knee (which has partially relapsed) was stiff in places, but mostly fine (it's usually later in the day that it acts up), same deal with the right knee (which is probably paying the price of being neglected in favor of the injured knee).
* Left glutes tight, probably from trying to keep the left knee and hamstring pointed strictly forward.
* Right quads tight, I'm pretty sure, but I have a good stretch for that that I just need to make myself do before my next run.

Left knee: I had stopped sleeping with it unbent, thinking it was healed and I could return to my normal lifestyle, but alas. I've been getting occasional spasms and occasional sliding and popping. I'm now back to a strict regimen, and hopefully it goes back to fully asymptomatic again. But at least it's letting me walk and run.

After a day off running to let my sore legs recover, I set out this morning with the goal of running 4.5 miles again, and a stretch goal of 5.2, if I could finish 4 loops.

...I ran 6.5 miles. In 62 minutes. Now, the 62 minutes is exact, because I was using the stopwatch on my phone, but the 6.5 miles is a Google Maps estimate. Even so, I'm still pretty sure it's a personal record for a single run. Not because of overall fitness, but because every time I get to 5 miles, I get injured by something (whether it's falling down the stairs or what).

Two things I've noticed about running in the last month:

One, Tucson (where I started running last month) and my neighborhood in Los Angeles are super flat, it feels like cheating, compared to my neighborhood in Massachusetts. I think I want to keep doing distance for a while longer, this leap to 6.5 is a bit sudden, but I do want to get to the gym soonish for some uphill cardio. My last house also had 4 stories, and my current apartment only has the one, so I get way less stair action in my day-to-day.

Two, back when I started (or restarted after many years away) running a couple years ago, for quite a while I would experience the phenomenon I described as feeling like I was running through jello: jerky movements, arms and legs moving at a running pace, but not working together smoothly. I didn't feel like I was *running* even if I technically was, and since I remembered what running felt like from many years ago, it was very discouraging. I eventually learned that I shouldn't interpret this as "today is not a running day" but as a "keep running and it'll get better." I was so happy when I finally got to the point where I consistently felt like I was running, right out the gate.

Well, I was afraid that after a year away, I would be back at square one and would have to fight that feeling again. Good news: I preserved the muscle memory! Every single run I've gone on, I've had that feeling of everything flowing and working together like it's supposed to, from the moment I started. I think that has probably accounted for a lot of my feeling that running is a lot easier this year.

But the lack of any hills or even slight inclines is probably an equally big contributor, and I need to do something about that.