That little twinge in your ankle you’ve literally never noticed until now. Bonus points if you catastrophize and imagine it getting worse until race day and blowing up your entire race.

Yeah, it’s residual load from weeks of training. I bonked pretty hard on my second to last long run, felt miserable my whole taper, and set a 30 minute PR last time. It’s very normal.

I mean, I would do it outside, but I just despise treadmills in general.

Biggest mistake is starting out too hard and gassing yourself. Set the appropriate pace early and find your rhythm. It’ll feel too easy for a bit, but the pain will come. Just settle into a good cadence and breathing rhythm and try to enjoy the work. It feels amazing when you’re done.

I hate summer too, but I do appreciate when the weather cools off and all the fitness gains hit you at once. Unfortunately, with a two marathon/year schedule, I kinda have to do both summer and winter training. Mostly, I’m just too lazy to build my base back up after an off season and prefer to keep it relatively high.

Duke City is a cool one. The weather in ABQ in the fall is about as perfect as it gets for running, but the altitude is a bitch if you’re not ready for it. Parts of this city are higher than Denver.

Thankful that I’ve managed to stay injury free through a really intense year. I’ve been able to beat my PRs in every single distance this year after 20 years of running at age 35.

Thankful for a partner who encourages my insanity instead of being annoyed by it. She was the one who convinced me to try for a BQ over a year ago when I thought I just wasn’t a fast runner. She was right, I was wrong, and now she’s created a monster.

Thankful that I have a family to run with and celebrate thanksgiving with today. Currently enjoying my coffee and smelling the posole slow cooking in the kitchen before heading out to do 3.12 at Mach Jesus and try to keep it together long enough to puke in a trash can in front of strangers. Then I get to spend a long weekend with the people I love and some long overdue beer.

Did my 6x8 workout in flats instead of the vaporflys I normally break out for hard workouts and it was definitely super shoe appreciation day. I’ve got a 5k on Thursday that I’m pretty sure I’ll PR, but my stretch goal of sub 17 is definitely gonna need a carbon shoe assist. Trying to remind myself that being in the 17s would’ve seemed impossible a year ago, but I’ve already done it this month on a workout, so any PR will be a big deal for me.

YES. I fucking hate hyper polarized training. Running fast intervals will make you fast and running slow will help you recover, but there’s a whole set of gears between the two and you need to spend time in all of them to really improve. That’s the #1 reason I love Pfitz plans. You hit every speed in between 5k and recovery and that shit works.

Tracksmith charges $80 for their base layer. I think they could ask more and I’d still buy it. I have never owned a more comfortable piece of running gear in my life and it’s the only top I need down to like 30 degrees unless it’s raining. Not often, but sometimes the expensive shit is worth what you pay.

Run on the left and assume they couldn’t see a fucking disco ball and you’re good. Go behind the car waiting to turn right, get off the road if you see headlights approaching, everyone is turning even if there’s no turn signal, etc. Also, no headphones ever. Easy peasy.

The vast majority of people aren’t limited by their genetics, they’re limited by how hard they want to work. The genetic ceiling isn’t something that 99.99% of people will ever even approach and it’s not the reason you aren’t getting faster.