Dragons

That title is probably a bit much. As you would recall when we left-off in March (maybe early April? -- I'm too lazy to go back and fact check against my own blog), I was a little roughed up from our final rugby match of the season against Scottsdale. And though I took a couple weeks off (and subsequently missed out on a chance to race the Run for Your Life 5K), this actually doesn't count as one of my bouts with quitting.

In order for me to quit, I like to think there are a couple of criteria. First, I need to be running consistently. I think when I got hurt I wasn't even up to 30 miles a week on more than 5 days per week of running. Second, I need to be showing improvement. Granted, I was showing improvement -- pulling my average morning pace from a staggering 8:45 pace down to a mind-boggling 8:29 for my 3 milers. But normally I like to aim to be quitting more around the tangent of a decaying exponential curve begins to approach zero.

Allow me to illustrate with some graph I found on Google images.

Hmmm....ok. It's like this. If you consider the number of days I have been actually 'training' is the X-axis, and then my progress (on a scale of 0 to 100 here) is the Y-axis, I'd say I am most likely to quit around the (90,85) point. Obviously this scale is a little off because I never do get as good as Y=85 on this chart, but I'd say the slope at this point is about right for when I quit.

That being said, I am currently sitting at about (12,25) -- so yeah, plenty of time to get the hopes up before just stopping.

Maybe I'll come back and reference this graph in the future. I like that idea.

BTW does anyone else think Eddie Vedder looks like The Dude from Big Lebowski these days?

Anyways, this morning was my return. I did 3.9 miles around the housal area here around the 8 minute pace. It was probably so fast just because I am still fresh. My shoulder is still pretty tight and it does still hurt to sneeze or shift in my chair, but maybe I just knew I had to get out there this morning after being motivated by this article about Paula Morrison.

Not really. The Star is a rag and if anyone else carried this article I wouldn't link it to the Star. Still -- good for Paula.

Oh -- I also saw Ben Eid last night at Zinburger (I secret shop under a different name sometimes). He had a candle in his shake and I thought it was his birthday. It turns out he made law review here as he finished his first year at UA Law School. Good for Ben.