WEEKLY SUMMARY (January 13-19): 52 miles (93% E, 6% M, 1% R paces)
  Sunday: 6 miles at 7:28/mi.
  Monday: 7 miles at 7:18/mi.
  Tuesday: 2.5 E, 2 x (400m R + 400m E), 2.5 E (6 miles total)
  Wednesday: 8 miles at 7:13/mi.
  Thursday: off
  Friday: 7 miles at 7:10/mi.
  Saturday: 18 miles at 7:10/mi. (last 3 miles in 6:51, 6:49, 6:47)

Ok, I'm a go for the RnR USA marathon, assuming that I don't get injured or very sick between now and then. In fact, I do seem to be nursing some kind of hip problem, which I'll monitor closely this coming week. But I finally had a good long run on Saturday this week. The first half of the week was underwhelming. After recovering from my previous long run last Saturday, I set out for a planned 400m repetition workout on Tuesday morning in spite of the cold, wind, and freezing rain. Once I arrived at the track and started trying to run fast, it became obvious that it just wasn't going to happen. I couldn't cover 400m any faster than 86 seconds, compared with 79 in my previous repetition workouts. The weather was mainly to blame, but my right hip was already hurting. So I called off the workout shortly after it had begun. My plan had been to do a tempo run this week as well, and initially I thought I'd do it on Thursday since Tuesday's workout was a dud. But this was my first week of classes and I'm still getting a feel for my schedule. I didn't get out early on Thursday to run and wasn't able to fit it in later. By then I was reading forecasts of seriously wintery weather next week, and the inauguration will also close off my usual longer routes, all of which pass through the National Mall area. So I postponed the tempo run (yet again) and did a long run on Saturday. The weather was nice - sunny and in the low 50's - but breezy. I was surprised at how packed the Mall area already was with people two days before the inauguration. For maybe 5 miles I was weaving through crowds or running on clumpy grass because the sidewalks were jammed with people. My intention was to run 18 miles at a steady pace around 7:20/mi., and this time I planned to eat a gel and drink more water at both 6 and 12 miles. At halfway my average pace was 7:16. My hip was getting tight but I felt strong, and my pace drifted faster from there. When I stopped briefly for my second gel at 12 miles, my hip felt very tight, but once I got going again I felt very strong and found myself gliding along comfortably at just over 7-flat. Running up Capitol Hill, which pushed me over the edge last week, didn't faze me this time. So I decided to run marathon pace for the final 3 miles. That was harder but I was not totally spent at the end. Surely the gels were a big part of the reason why this run went better than previous ones. But still, 7:10/mi. is way faster than I've ever been able to do long training runs before, and my standard easy pace these days is drifting that fast as well. What is going on here? I'm not training particularly hard and my mileage is relatively moderate. Here's a hypothesis: my last couple months of training for the MCM were basically a kind of base training phase. I ran (for me) high mileage and never ran faster than tempo pace, which I kept to a low percentage of my overall mileage. After the MCM, I cut my mileage significantly and started doing some faster running - initially too much, but then I was forced to back off to running faster no more than twice a week and often only once a week. So I'm more rested now from lower mileage and my body wants to run faster due to occasional injections of speed. If that's right, then it suggests both that I should keep those injections of speed occasional (i.e., I should be careful to avoid running too fast too often), and that I should keep my mileage moderate in order to maintain this momentum through the Spring. Maybe I should plan another high mileage base phase in the summer, which might pay similar dividends in the Fall?