here's a theory

 I used to love to hammer runs in college. I built up to a point where I could run pretty hard almost every day. Or maybe start off slow but then run really hard at the end. It was a point of pride and identity. I was like, yeah I can't run super fast but I don't break down and I can train hard nearly every day. I'm sure I'm distorting history a little bit but the reason I remember this is because the summer after I graduated from college I distinctly remember not being able to run hard anymore. It was like I had two speeds at that point. I could either run slow and easy or I could concentrate really hard and run fast but running fast stopped being a thing that just happened. 

At the time I thought, well I guess I just got older. Or maybe I'm overtrained and my legs just don't want to do that anymore. And then I kinda just left it at that and didn't really think about it anymore.

Here's my new theory for what I think happened. And I figured it out because I think I'm back at that point now. Today especially felt really good and effortless and fun. What I was doing in college was coasting off the leg and hip strength that I developed in high school. 

We did A LOT of core and strength work in high school. Lots of core exercises on the floor, lots of lunges and drills and squats and these things called "sammies" and I always thought it was so boring and a waste of time. All I wanted to do was run more. 

So then in college I stopped doing all of that stuff and ran a lot and got better but it turns out all that strength work I thought was so boring was a big part of the reason I enjoyed running. 

My new theory is that you can maintain a lot of hip and leg strength just from running for a long time because it targets enough relevant muscles but at some point if you don't do anything but run you just kind of run lose it and running becomes something very different. Like it gets to the point where your hamstrings and hip flexors and hip extensors and glutes and stuff just aren't able to help as much and it's like a car driving on flat tires. 

It was really exacerbated that summer in Williamsburg because it was hot and humid and I started working a full time job and all the people I'd been running with were away for the summer so it was hard to understand at the time what caused this change amidst a lot of big changes.

All of that is to say that the more I get older, the more I realize that getting older is often NOT the excuse for why things have changed. In this case it was something that I completely took for granted and it wasn't until I stopped doing it for a long time and stumbled back into it that I realized how important it actually was.

dang I felt good today. I was cruising. I was in my last mile on a flat road with a tailwind and I saw this guy running ahead of me and he looked like he was moving pretty well and I went into hunter mode and started trying to run him down and I couldn't quite catch him before the end of the road without sprinting but I closed the gap