Easy, Peasy, Japanesy....

One of the easiest ways to monitor fitness is the pace at which one does an "easy" workout. These are the workouts that you finished feeling refreshed, happy and lively - as opposed to the ones where you feel beaten, broken and worthless...

Last night marked a new level for me, as I polished off a 10k training run in just over 51 minutes, which translates to about 8:07 a mile... But what was special about this was that I was able to put in my training run as an "easy" run.

Truth be told, it wasn't 100% easy... there were a few moments when deep conversation wouldn't have been appreciated, had anyone asked, but still, it was mostly an easy workout.

When I was at the top of my game, back in '89 (ouch), I could do a ten-mile run at 7:00 pace and not break a sweat, so that's kind of "the bar" I've set for myself. And while it's hard to imagine getting there again, six months ago I couldn't imagine getting to an easy 8:07, either.

Running itself was a bit of an adventure last night. Supposedly, some vandals have taken to shooting at neighborhood windows with bee-bee (bea-bea? bb?) guns. Now this story comes to me second-hand from a second grader, but it doesn't change the fact that part of my reason for my 10k jaunt was to keep an eye on any hooligans with smile rifles. Fortunately, they didn't show themselves because a man in black tights fighting teenagers with small guns is just pathetic.

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