I thought at first that shorter, faster stuff would be harder with the cast, but really it's progression runs that are the worst. Today I had to call my progression because my right shoulder was compensating so much for the broken arm that it began to hurt with every arm swing. Couldn't get to that comfortable, full of run feeling and just called it about a mile before I wanted to. Never got to pick the pace up either. It's funny -- I've been trying to train myself for so long to not sweat this kind of thing and just move on that I wonder if I've maybe gone too far. I hardly had any second thoughts about it. Did a slow jog, grabbed my spikes, did a few strides, went to the weight room. I'm a little nervous all of a sudden that I'm just going through the motions with training; I remember when I had just graduated high school I didn't really push my training, and then became frustrated that, after a breakthrough year, all my races began to stagnate. Last year was a huge breakthrough. This year, I was definitely in a good spot indoors; didn't crack 8 minutes but won all my races and was running some solid workouts. Is that good, or should I expect more? Last year, I was incredibly fired up because it was my last chance to do something big at the conference meet in cross, indoors, and outdoors. I don't have anything like that to motivate me right now. Is that a bad thing? It's probably fine. I just have to get out of this cast.