Today's run fell into the very small window of time between my work day and my husband leaving for bowling. Normally, this window is about 20 minutes, but today was close to an hour, so I figured I could handle fitting in 4 miles. Fortunately, this meant I was able to run outside instead of on the dreadful contraption that's taken up residence in my basement.
And what a beautiful day for a run... 59 degrees, sunny and breezy. My husband might call this perfect football weather, but for me, this will always be great cross country weather.
Since I was squeezing this run in while my husband was being his usual awesome self and feeding our son dinner, I decided to see if I could manage a little better than a 10 minute mile pace. I certainly don't want my training to interfere with our usual routine... at least not yet. My first mile was a little over 9 minutes and I felt pretty good about that. But, apparently my new play list (thank god I finished that audio book... it was freakin' terrible!) caused me to kick it up a notch during my second and third miles because I'd managed to run closer to an 8 minute mile for each of them. Surprisingly enough, my last mile felt great and I somehow kept that pace going. I think the reason I'm so surprised that I managed to run 4 miles at an 8:30 pace is because, just a few weeks ago, giving it my absolute all, my 5k was at the same pace. I couldn't really understand how I was able to run further and not slow down. Then I thought back over the last few weeks and realized that, even though some of my improvement can possibly be attributed to my training, I'm guessing the major difference is that I quit smoking. It's hard to believe what a difference that's made, but I've felt so much better these last few weeks. It's enough to make me want to sign up for another 5k just to see how much better I could do.
One of my favorite things to do these days is finish the last 50+ yards as fast as I can. I'm certainly no sprinter and I probably look pretty silly to any neighbors that happen to see me run by, but nonetheless, I love the way it feels to finish knowing that I gave it that little extra effort at the end. So, about a quarter mile before the finish, I have to find a good song to end with. Today's was 'Standing Outside the Fire' by Garth Brooks. Sure, the song is actually about love... but if you ignore that part, it's actually pretty motivational and was the perfect end to today's run...
"Life is not tried, it is merely survived, if you're standing outside the fire."
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