Well, I think that might be a good sign. It took almost four weeks before I thought one of my runs was really “hard”, as in I found myself, numerous times throughout the thing, thinking, “There’s no way in hell I’m going to finish this.” The run was a 6-miler, on the same route as Wednesday’s run (behind the Kibbie Dome and past the hungry sheep), but instead of a nice, lackadaisical whatever-I-felt-like-doing pace, it was supposed to be at “race pace”, which I’ve been saying is about 9:00 a mile. My first mile was exactly at 9 minutes, the second came in at about 8:45 (probably because I didn’t have the crazy uphill I had in the first), but when I was midway through that third mile, I just felt like all the energy in my legs were gone. Somehow, I managed to keep pushing and stayed the course, finishing in 53:43, or 8:57 pace. Phew!