More Progress, No Problems.
For some reason, I'll periodically hit stretches of time where I make a lot of progress in distance, time, or both on my runs. I had recently felt like I was running along on a plateau and then suddenly, it felt like my times started dropping fairly dramatically. In one of my last posts, I noticed the downward trend of my times for long runs, and I have continued that trend this weekend. Yesterday, I got my 10 mile run in with an average of 9:21/mile. My pace is getting more consistent too, with my miles ranging only from 8:59-9:35 on this last one. So, I guess the idea that these drops occur suddenly is mistaken, but for some reason it sure feels that way. I always am feeling better throughout the longer runs and after I finish them. I'll take all of that as positive steps and be glad though.
As I'm making these strides, I'm amending my goals for The Bear and getting more and more ambitious. I'm now going to aim for a 45 minute finish time, which would put me on my target half marathon pace of averaging 9 minute miles. Making that time would also put me in contention to get one of the sweet pottery mugs they give out to about the top 10% of men and top 10% of women, I think. I imagine I'll probably need to get into the very low 40s or high 30s before that becomes a reality, but I want one of those damn mugs.
I know you're all DYING to know, so I will inform you that I did finish Letters To A Young Poet, which I wrote about a few days ago. The rest of the book is just as fantastic as the part that I had read prior to my last post and I continue to urge anyone to read it. I think there are lots of things to get out of the text for most people, particularly if you have creative passions.
Also, The Famous Slip Slams will be playing in Burlington, NC on March 14th! We're pretty stoked to get out and get another show in, especially one like this in our home town where we can showcase a lot more of our material that we haven't gotten to play in public before. We've put out a couple live jam videos recently that you can check out on our Youtube channel.