running update

I am steadily gaining faith in my ability to do this half-marathon thing, and while I wouldn't say each run is easier, I can feel myself growing in strength and mental fortitude. I can see myself running the 2.5 hours it will probably take me to do the 13.1 miles - albeit probably slowly. I ran a nice fast (for me) 3.5 miles the other day - a pace of 9:20 min per mile, to my usual 12.00 min. Speed isn't the goal, but the spike was encouraging - although I'm not sure where it came from.
Meanwhile, I haven't been all that productive in the writing department in the past couple of weeks - I try to plod along but become discouraged or distracted, or veins that seem promising dry up on me too soon to become much. But I can't help but treat running as a constant, physical metaphor for writing - I'm in training and just need to learn how to make those encouraging spikes happen more often. I'm trying to pay more attention to what makes them come.