I want to say something crazy happened with running in the past week or two, but maybe it's perfectly natural and normal and the result of a (finally) good training regimen. Suddenly I'm running at a surprisingly brisk pace (for my age and health/diet) and injury seemingly being kept at bay.

I've kept expectations at rock bottom since I ventured back into running two and a half years ago when I joined World Gym; a week into which I injured my Achilles tendon. Both Achilles dogged me for the entire two years of gym membership. Never both at once, always one or the other; and not the whole time, but the worry was always present.

Recently, not just improved speed and lack of injury, but extended distances beyond the almost daily 3-milers and occasional 4-milers and even rarer 5 miles. Things were going so well I ran 6 miles for the first time possibly since I was doing 10k races in the Bay Area in the late 90s!

I don't know if it's a fluke. I'm still worried about injury. I'm constantly monitoring any sensations of possible discomfort in my Achilles tendons and knees. Knees were the problem back in 1999 which stopped me running after my second San Francisco Marathon and had me switch to cycling.

It's a little strange the way it happened. After my gym membership ended in June, I decided to just fuck it and hit the riverside bikeways and try running short 3 mile distances as slow as comfortable but as often as possible. That might be the training regimen that's working if this holds up.

All summer I've been plodding and jogging along at whatever pace was comfortable, slowing down even more if I felt like vomiting, which was often. I was hardly impressed by my performance or improvement. Sometimes I'd put in a respectable run, but then go back to mostly jogging.

Then a couple weeks ago I went out not feeling great, but every runner has experienced not feeling great at first but then doing pretty well, and vice versa. How you feel going out doesn't determine how well you'll do. So not feeling great didn't deter me from going ahead with a planned 4 mile course. It was slow. I felt it was slow and wasn't gonna get any faster. But my principle was to go however felt comfortable, so I kept plodding on and didn't let it bother me then or after the fact how slow I was going.

And it was really slow, averaging 10:30 miles. When I started in June, I knew I was going to have to allow for 10+ minute miles, but after four months training I wasn't doing much of those anymore. I could at least break the 10 minute mark. And mostly I was jogging in the 9 minute mile range.

The next day was a rain-out, but the day after I went for a 3-miler which was easy and averaged 8:28 per mile. *blink, blink, blink*. OK, I have done 8:30 mile range runs over the summer, it wasn't beyond credibility. But they never felt as easy and they were one-offs, and this was probably, too. Then the next day, 8:14 miles easy and feeling fresh. Then the following day telling myself to slow down to avoid injury, 8:41 miles easy. 

I was feeling so good that the next day I decided to do 6 miles. I don't even have a 6-mile course except in theory. The theoretical 6-mile course just goes past the bridge I cross for my 3-mile course (coming back on the other side of the river) to the next footbridge, and it turns out that it meshes so perfectly with the 3-mile course that the ending points are just meters apart. I won't say six miles was la-la-la easy. I was pushing against slowing down (meaning going against just being comfortable) and in the end I did it averaging 9:19 miles. Which is far better than the 10+ miles I was allowing for. Every time I've upped my miles this summer my expectation was over 10 minute miles and that was usually the case.

And since then, every run I've gone on has been in the 8 minute range, including a 5-miler. Individual miles have even fallen under 8 minutes. I am a bit astonished. I would never have thought I could feel like a runner again, especially with my age and alcoholism. It doesn't mean anything. I can encounter any number of injuries I'm prone to at any time. Injury might even get me back on my bike and try a winter season now that summers are too hot to ride in. 

It's not like I'm trying to achieve anything. It's just what I'm doing for however long it lasts. And I don't expect anything to last. That's more of a reality than ever.