your falling into a slump because you have such an easy fallback and you let yourself fallback on it to easily.

bike or nuthin.

btw - i just started running for the first time (in my life) as well, what a b!tch huh??? i have a 2 mile off-road loop behind my house that i struggle through for now. my girlfriend is the runner so now that she commutes by bike i feel like i gotta run (a little anyway). i feel like the bike commute really helps me to stretch out the next morning a little. maybe its the 3x a week that killin you. i am a big guy so for me any more than once or twice a week really takes a toll on my knees and joints. i want to run all winter along with the commute so i can maybe get out and do some singlespeed mtb races and long rides next year. the running seems to take me to levels of pain i remember from my early days of biking. I SEE STARS; WOOOOOOO!