I don't like to resign myself to a bit of failure but it is starting to become increasingly evident that I am just not going to be able to go faster than this at least for now. I talked to my personal trainer friend face-to-face the other day and asked her why she thinks, with her 20 years of experience, why it is that I am not getting faster.
After telling her about how I focus primarily on weights she just kind of laughed and said "duh!"
I guess that makes me a feel a bit better. She said that if I keep gaining muscle mass, which honestly is more important to me, that I will almost certainly continue to get slower and slower in cardio. She said at my age I have to make a choice: DO I want to bulk up or do I want to be fast? Because unless I devote myself entirely to fitness I am not going to be able to have both.
An 8 Minute km average isn't going to impress any serious runner and it doesn't impress me either seeing as how 1.5 years ago I was 1.5 minutes per km faster. But to be fair I am more impressed now with my upper body physique than I was 1.5 years ago as well. Perhaps this has happened to me every winter and I just didn't really notice it.
One thing I guess you could say that I was happy about was that the start and finish of this jog were nearly identical as far as pace is concerned. In the middle there I was very slow and while i am not making excuses some of this wasn't entirely my fault. There was ice on the pavement in the parks in some places and I didn't feel like busting my head open or destroying my phone.
I'm going to continue to do cardio despite the shite pace I am on because if I stop doing it, it will only get worse. Let's just trudge on through this and take it as it comes. I am doing a lot more than most people so maybe I should just be happy with that!