What a morning. Since I didn't get a run in yesterday, I set my alarm to my normal morning-run time (5:30am), fully expecting myself to just roll over and ignore the alarm and be forced to run in Oak Openings to escape the sun. While I DID reset my alarm for 6:30, I was wide awake and ready to go by 6:15. If my family heard me getting up, they probably thought I was nuts. I'm normally the child they don't see until 10 (at least) and when I do get up, I go straight for the caffeine and can't function until an hour later. lol. Plus, I was in a strangely good mood and humming under my breath the whole time I was getting ready.
It really was a great run, though I wasn't so sure about the start. My Garmin was having a little difficulty finding satelites and I was worrying I would have to just time myself off my iPod and figure out the distance later (a BIG worry since I can't always map on DailyMile the trails I run). About 5 minutes into my warmup, it seemed better and recording just fine. Instead of turning down Cable and taking Weckerly away from town, I decided to head directly past the elementary school into town to catch the south fork of the Wabash-Cannonbal trail (it's a wonderful trail system in our area made from old railroad lines). Before jumping on the trail, I took a quick lap around the pond in the park. A dog-walker was going the other direction and one of the beagles threw a fit when the guy didn't let him turn around and run with me. lol. Getting on the W-C trail was nice. Even with this being "the country", there aren't many long stretches of straight, well-maintained, level pavement in my running radius (max 5-6 miles, round trip ... for now). I only went as far as Cemetery road before cutting back over to Weckerly and heading for home, heading down the steep hill on Winslow and back into my neighborhood from the north end. Oh, and did I mention it was still only 67* by the time I got back to the house? Oh yea. It was nice.
As I do at the beginning of all my runs, it seems like, I let myself run as far as I can without feeling fatigued or needing a drink of water. I made it 1.7 miles (18:34) before I even though to look down at my Garmin and see how far I had gone. That plus the weather put me in a great mood for the rest of the run. This was really the first time I felt like I was RUNNING and not just shuffling along. According to DailyMile, this is my fastest-paced run off the treadmill to date! My SLOWEST average pace for a piece of a run was 11:08 and all the others were under 11. Maybe it was the nice cool-ness, maybe it was because I KNEW I could do the distance. All I know was it was a GREAT run for me and it makes me 10x more confident about signing up for that next 5k. As long as I can keep extending that initial run distance and pushing while still feeling comfortable, I'll be a happy girl.
When I got back, I did my pushups right away, even though I'm still feeling the ones from Thursday. Dad laughed at me when I groaned reaching up to the cupboard for something this morning.
Now, I get to go haul tables and boxes and help set up for the family reunion this afternoon. It's my dad's mom's family and I always enjoy seeing them. It'll be the first year without either of my grandparents (Grandpa passed a little less than a year ago), and it'll be hard, but I'll have my cousins and their adorable kids to keep me entertained. Mikayla is my little rock star birthday buddy (she was born on my birthday) and I haven't even met Cayden yet (he was still 2 weeks from being born when I visited Pittsburgh this spring).
