Slow and Steady Run Progess

I shared a version of this graph in my "year in review" post that showed I had consistent long runs for a year, and then got injured and it was crap. I updated it now to show how running has been going over the last few months:

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That little bump in the green (GREEN means "injured") was back in November when my PT wanted me to try a little running. Then when I took off in March, she had me build up my miles pretty quick as we learned it was nothing I would "further injure" with stress - we were just in "pain management." I changed the color back to red (RED means "regular") on my first 5 mile run, which was in mid-April. From that day on, I knew how to manage the pain and that I really WASN'T injured. I was just trying to keep my foot as pain-free as possible.

I know it's hard to tell, but last week I hit SIX miles for my long run!

Slow and steady progress.

Just for fun, I thought I'd look at my pace for my runs since starting back. My current pace is about the same as my pace last summer before getting injured, but back then I was running long runs that were 2x as far, so I was in MUCH better shape back then (so it doesn't makes sense to compare my current pace to back then because of how much farther I was running then). Every run since March is noted here (except for the blank spot where I did intervals and an overall pace is quite skewed), and this graph shows me getting consistently faster, and then plateauing in the last few weeks:

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My first 2 weeks of runs (first 6 runs) were 8:00.5/mile average, and my last 2 weeks of runs were 7:06.2/mile average. But a random 2 weeks of runs in the middle of this graph averages 7:11.0/mile, so as the graph clearly shows, my runs are NOT going to keep dramatically getting faster.

Happy 4th!!