Slow, steady, hot, and boring wins the race

Leah and I were forced to slow down for a recovery run last night and a well deserved recovery run, I might add; we've been running our asses off recently (yep, ran them right off. two butts lying on the floor. Don't see that every day). Still, as necessary/important/blah blah blah as recovery runs are, they sure do suck.

They're just so...slow. Last night we did them about as slowly as we could, pacing 10:13 minutes/mile for 5 miles (and of course, by slow, I mean relative to our optimal pace). That's the uppermost limit for our recovery runs according to McMillian, although our time was definitely padded by a few unfortunate stoplights right at the very end of our run. But as I was saying, it's annoying to have to go slower than you are capable because then the run takes so much longer. When you are running the same 5 mile loop you always run, it's really just better to get it over with. But noooooooo, we've got to run slow and save our legs. Boo.

It's like when, on our way into work, we have to slow down for the school zone outside Fermi. The speed limit drops from something like 45 all the way down to 20. This 20 mph zone is right before we get to the lab, so we can see the gates all the while we're creeping along at barely more than a walking pace. It's truly mind maddening.

Well, in the end, I think the "slow, steady, hot, and boring wins the race" part is actually pretty true. If we don't slow way down for the recovery runs, our legs won't be all juiced up for the speed work and long runs. And then we'll not be prepared for the marathon and then we'll just die. And nobody wants that. So we slow down with the hopes of a reward today when we tackle our 9 miler with fresh legs.

That's the idea anyway.