Timed fitness run

I'll get to the timed run in a second. Just wanted to say that yesterday Brendan and I went to the gym together for my cross training day. We have been trash talking each other for weeks about who can lift more on lower body. I was convinced it was me. My legs are more muscular, they are actually a little bit bigger, and he doesn't run. Yeah, he can still lift more on leg press. It seems so unfair! I have to laugh about it. After our "lift off" I did some inner & outer thigh work, abs, some triceps, and just messed around trying out some new things. It was a really laid back workout, meant to be fun.

On to the timed run. Since last Wednesday was so hot and humid (see the post "Hot, nasty, bad-assed speed"), the timed 5k "fitness assessment" run was moved to today. Today was hot, too, but much less humid. We did the usual mile warm-up, stretched, then started the 5k. My time was 25:57, which, while that's my fastest ever timed 5k, I know I can run 3.1 miles faster than that. I don't want to make excuses, but I do think I can explain it. I'm still stiff from Saturday's run. I asked my coach about it. He said that sometimes a step up in long run mileage just beats up the body more than normal and in doing so makes for a long recovery. He said that almost everyone experiences a long run week like this during training. He said he thinks it's good to run hard during one of these hard recovery weeks, that training while tired is a key part of endurance training. Apparently a person training for a marathon typically goes through a hard recovery long run like that more than once. So, I guess it's a good thing after all! Perhaps it means I'm right on track.