[Health and Fitness] Running in Place

Running in Place:  At least it seems that way.  Maybe even backwards. In wake of my plan a couple months ago to write more about my running/biking and other fitness activities, I have nothing good to report.  I ran two races in April both of which were awful  -- that is, my times were awful, the races themselves were terrific.  One was the Big House Big Heart run which is a 10K through the U Mich campus ending on the fifty yard line of Michigan Stadium, which is deeply cool, even though the race was soaked in a chilling rain.  The other was a 5-mile trail run through the Pinckney Rec Area - a real lung buster filled with hills so steep it's difficult to even maintain even a jog.  Temperature at race the start was an unseasonably cold 39 degrees. 

In both cases my times were significantly slower than the previous year.  In the case of the trail race, so much so that I suspect that they mismeasured this year's route to longer than 5 miles.  It's got me very rattled.  I was feeling good with my time after the Sarasota Half Marathon in March and now I'm very down on myself.  I suppose it's possible these were flukes, but another bad race or two and I am going to have to step back and reassess what I am doing.

The good news is I got my bike back from the shop after a tune up.  Cycling season begins on the next warm weekend.  Provided I don't have to mow the damn lawn and battle immortal weeds and killer wasps all weekend.  Then after that swimming season, once the lake warms up enough.