Am I like Britney Spears?

If you saw the recent MTV Video Music Awards you will know that just like me, Britney Spears is attempting to stage a much needed a comeback. Also like me, she is embarassingly out of shape (ie. fat), unsure of herself (ie. nervous to the point of not being able to even lipsync), and unquestionably nowhere near as good as she used to be (ie. crap). Her new "song" opens with "It's Britney, Bitch!"

So get ready, cos..... "It's Alan, Bitch!"

After my stupid "fast lap" last week I have learned another lesson: basically running fast laps is going to bugger up my achilles until I am in much better shape. So the plan is to not do them anymore. That run was Wednesday and I didn't run again until late Friday afternoon, and it was a lame run. Felt sore right from the start and really sluggish. The least impressive run I've had in a long time (which is truly saying something). After that I bagged the entire weekend (most of which was spent in referee school thanks to my lovely wife who decided I should volunteer to ref my son's U7 AYSO soccer games - which I'm sure will be great for my achilles).

It's a day off work for me today and I woke up with all my various ailments feeling pretty good so I went for a 9am run along with all the other slackers that don't have real jobs. The plan was to go a little longer than recently (6-7 miles) with some tempo pace miles in there (7:30ish pace) but nothing faster than that.

Easy first 1/2 mile and then eased into a 7:45 pace. Slowed right down going up the 50' hill and then pick it up as I rolled down the gradual hill for the next 2.5 miles. Averaged 7:25 for those 2.5 miles which felt good. Slowed it down to low 8's for the 2 miles home. Overall a good run, 7:48 pace, 159 heartrate with about 300' of hills. The best run I've had recently, but still far short of 4 months ago.

Comparing to a similar run in mid May: I did the 2.5miles at about 6:45, and the easy miles were high 7s vs low 8s. It's also shocking how easy those high 7's were back then, heartrate was going down as I ran them. Today it was steady at best at low 8's.

I think that both me and Britney have some more work to do. I think I'll give her a call and we can work on this together.... "Hey Britney, it's Alan, Bitch!"