An epiphany!

I finally had an epiphany while slogging through the snow with the dogs this morning (and no, it is not to sit on a cart and have a donkey pull me 13.1 miles instead of running myself).

Let's say you have a donkey and you have him pull a cart full of goods to market. There are three markets, none of them far away, and you have the donkey pull the cart to each one once a week. You know it's hard work, so you give the donkey a day off after each trip to the market. You like it when the donkey moves briskly, but you let him slow down to a trot or even walk every few minutes to catch his breath. The donkey comes to love the trips to market and gets fairly speedy.

After six or eight months of this, word of your high-quality wares has spread, and two additional markets want you to come sell your wares there on two days the donkey used to rest. The two new markets are further away than the old ones. All of this happens just as the neurotic king passes a law that donkeys are no longer allowed to walk on their way to market--they must always run at a good steady clip. So now the donkey is running to market five days a week, can't stop and walk, and doesn't get a rest day after each trip. Oh, and on the other two days when the donkey isn't going to market, you have him do some chores around the farm that are meant to keep his hooves nice and tough so he can handle all that running to the various markets.

So here's the question: Is the donkey going to run faster now than he did before?? I think not, at least not for a long while.

The donkey is me. (I suppose you could use a less charitable name if you wish.) I can't believe it took me this long to see something so obvious. Of course I did well when I was only running three days a week and doing little baby intervals where I got to slow down all the time. Of course I'm going to run slower with no recovery intervals AND running further AND running more days of the week! Seriously, DUH! (Today's run is another case in point: 3 miles in 35:54 at 0.5 incline, including warmup time).

I feel so much better now!

As you can see, we got plenty of snow. Outdoor running is not going to happen for a while *despondent sigh*. I miss it so much.

The dog bowl forecast is screaming "YEAAARGH!! Remove me and clean me up before I start destroying your foundation! And maybe you should just buy a gym membership!" What really cracks me up is that Quincy still tries to get a drink from it almost every time he goes outside.