Once I was adequately warmed up I jogged over to the Gardens where I ran the same 8x1' hill rep session as I did 2 weeks ago. I felt better/stronger than I remember feeling before... I was highly conscious of my body position and leading with my hips and getting power out of my posterior chain. I had thoughts about how I felt like a swimmer trying to solve this running problem of mine. It just seems so clear to me that my lack of run speed isn't a fitness thing but it must be an economy/efficiency thing. I think those drills are helping for sure, short strides and hill reps are also helping. Like if I can get myself into the right body position and then use the right muscles to power my running, I'm more efficient and I move quicker and its not as hard. I've thought about this here and there over the years but never quite as diligently as I'm approaching it right now so we'll see if it helps. Feels like it is but I want more consistency with it before I decide for sure that it is.
That run pissed off my hip pretty good and I considered bailing on my planned afternoon run. I took some ibuprofen (which I haven't had to do in a few weeks) and rolled my glutes out with the supernova ball to see if that would help. It did, so I did my afternoon run as planned. Same as 2 weeks ago- 2.5 miles out/down followed by 2.5 miles back/up, with the goal of being faster on the way home. I jumped on the Hoka Clayton bandwagon and bought myself a pair of those- this was my first run in them. I think I liked them but they must be a bit longer than my normal shoes b/c I caught my toe and almost tripped like 10x during this run? In order to avoid falling on my face, I had to really focus on lifting my feet up, which might have actually been a good thing. I ran out at ~8:40 pace which was faster than it felt for sure, but I still wondered how I was going to run faster than that given the uphill coming home?? I managed though! 8:25 pace coming home is faster than I've gone before so something is clicking (and I didn't trip and fall on my face!) Effort in the last 2 miles was high though, maybe too high? It felt like a withdrawal vs a deposit and I finished thinking that I should not put out an effort like that again until race day. I'm glad I did it today because it was only ~20min of real effort and it was confidence building, but I'll need to be careful to not go looking for confidence again for the next 9 days. In good news, my hip felt totally fine while I was running and the pain hasn't come back. Go figure.
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