End of the first quarter

Finishing up March with 212.72 miles.  Just barely my 2nd highest mileage month.  This puts me at 601.12 for the quarter.

601.12 miles at 8:00:06 pace for the year.  8:06 average pace in January, 8:01 in February, and 7:54 in March so the average pace is trending down.  

I've exercised (either ran or biked or both) every day so far this year... adding the 90 days so far this year to the last 3 days in December and I'm now at 93 straight days.  

I can feel myself getting fitter and stronger.  My Garmin VO2 max has been 59 since the beginning of March.  I know this is arbitrary but this is the highest it's ever been.  I had it up to 58 last August but only for a couple weeks.

Today I ran 8.33 miles on the course.  The temp was in the low 30s.  I underperformed a bit as it took a while for my muscles to loosen up.  I don't love the cold.  But after a pedestrian 7:50 first mile, we settled in at 7:10 pace.  Pretty much held that effort for miles 2-7.  Felt pretty easy but my left leg was kind of tight and I just didn't feel like I wanted to push much harder.  Mile 8 started with a downhill and I took off.  Finished up the last 1.33 miles at a 6:11 pace the last mile hurt but it was a comfortable hurt.  One of these days I'm gonna get one of these miles under 6.