One word... AMAZING! I can not believe how great it felt to run these 6 miles. It was a typical fall day... cool, overcast and incredibly windy. I wasn't sure running outside was going to be the best idea, but I'm so glad I did it.
My first 3 miles were all around a 9:00 mile pace and, being that I finished with an average pace of 8:40, my last 3 miles were obviously a whole lot faster (somewhere around 8:20 each). The reason for this, of course, is that a good bit of the first half of this run was uphill and into the wind. After the 3 mile mark, it was all downhill from there. No... literally... it was all downhill with the wind at my back. I imagine that made up for the large time discrepancy.
And, of course, I had my philosophical moment right around the 3.5 mile mark when I turned a corner and had the wind at my back... Sometimes you just have to stay the course, no matter how difficult it seems. There will be times when things don't seem to be going your way, but they're bound to turn around eventually :)
Enough of the cheese... back to reality...
As I mentioned before, it was a typical fall day and I had 52 minutes to appreciate it. Fall in Ohio just doesn't last very long and, before you know it, winter is upon you. It was great to get a chance to appreciate the changing colors, the falling leaves and the indescribable smell of the season. Of course, the half mile radius surrounding Red Robin doesn't exactly smell like 'fall', but it did make me hungry for a burger and fries. And, shortly after that, someone in the area was baking some kind of apple deliciousness... the scent of apples and cinnamon followed me a short distance further. Maybe that explains the faster second half of my run... I couldn't wait to get home to eat!
All in all, I would say today was a huge success. I felt great from my first step to my last and am proud to say I've tackled 6 miles. The increase to 7 miles is still 3 weeks away and I'm already looking forward to it!
Now it's time to celebrate with a few beers and maybe a couple shots... Happy Birthday Michael! :)
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