One of the taboo question you are not allowed to ask a PhD student is "How is your research going?". I guess something similar may be true for runners too. How is my running? Absolutely terrible. I have a 5K race on Saturday and yesterday was my last day of training. Maybe it was the 28 F temperature or the fact that I flew across America twice on Monday and Tuesday, but it was very disappointing. I had to skip some important runs because of travel just before the race, so I decided to do a last race pace on two miles yesterday. In fact, I decided I would run 2 miles as fast as I could. I am ashamed to write it down that my time was 15:36. I probably started out too fast, thinking it was only two miles, and I had the most terrible side stitches after about 3/4 mile, which debilitated my run for about a half of a mile. I just couldn't run through the pain, I did have to slow down. In the last 3/4 mile I felt I was running at my VO2 max, but it just wasn't enough. If I project this time to 5K, I would not make it in 24:00.

I hope this was just a bad day. Rest for today, and tomorrow afternoon we are off to the beautiful Charleston/Folly Beach. Wish me luck!