Lake Michigan at Sunrise

Lake Michigan at Sunrise

Friday, May 10, 2013

Respecting the Run

After a rest day yesterday, I was itching to get out again. Saw there might be scattered showers at 5am, bring it!

Wake up and see this on me phone:

Rain... and dry conditions will continue?

So its dry and raining? Go home weather.com, you're drunk! I check the radar and it showed the rain moved out of the area. Score!

I just bought a new battery for my phone since my previous one was losing its charge waaaay too fast.  Decided to give the new battery a test and run Endomondo and a GPS booster for my run.  I wanted to also focus on respecting the full length of my warm up and cool down distances (1.5 miles both).

As someone who has a time deadline to get back home from my runs, slowing down isn't my favorite thing to do.  It took me awhile to respect the need for easy/recovery runs, and make sure I wake up earlier to do them.  Now as I am prepping myself for my training program for Chicago marathon, the plan requires a 1.5 to 3 mile warm up and cool down for your harder run days (strength/interval/tempo days).  Initially, I responded like, aint nobody got time for that!

As I settle into my current weekly mileage, and running first thing in the morning, I initially accepted a warm up period, but not much of a cool down. I didn't want to see my average pace time go down that much.  Today, I broke that mental barrier, when I heard my phone yell out 7.5 miles, I dropped my speed down and just glided home the last 1.5 miles.  I checked my splits and funny enough, my body didn't really warm up until mile 3. Although, I still put a note in my running log so my Runkeeper friends know that wasn't my constant pace, hah... 

The run itself was okay. My stomach let me run about 90% of the speed I wanted, whenever I went up to the pace I wanted, it pushed back, oh well!  The weather was damp, foggy, and maybe a very light drizzle.  The trees were shaking what their momma gave them and would give you a quick shower if you weren't careful.  I guess it was misting enough to soak my socks though... yummy.

The crowd I saw earlier in the week was not seen, even south of Belmont. I guess 40s and puddles kept some people in bed.  I saw most of my normies, for my daily nods/waves/thumbs up.  Oddly enough, the traffic starting picking up north of Montrose.  I saw a few groups come out to run that I hadn't seen since last fall. It was like fire sale on waves and hellos! Great way to cheer up the last couple miles. 

Glad I got my running fix, that it is Friday, and hoping tomorrow morning will mimic last weekend and start like this (Excuse the PJs and front facing camera resolution!)

Saturday Morning Snuggles!

Did you brave the Misty Mountains paths today?

Happy Friday!





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