Finally Freaking Friday

The onset of the relatively cooler weather has been great for two reasons - better runs and better eating.

The last two days my appetite has increased two fold. I had been struggling to eat enough or want to eat more. Not a problem last night. I got home, had two servings of lasagna, half of an Aldi's pizza (have you seen them? they are HUGE), a cookie monster cupcake from Molly's Cupcakes, and grazed on other snacks. There is no way this could affect my run right?

I also went to bed about half an hour early last night, which also felt great!

Home note - kiddo is under the weather, she would right before her birthday tomorrow, so party postponed for a week.

Wake up 4am today, yay Friday! Get that coffee going like Wild Turkey at a frat party. 40 minutes later, I'm good to go. I thought the temp was going to be closer to 60 when I woke up, so I put on the liquid skin and tape on the man pecks since that is tech shirt weather. Check weather... 70? Well time to rip them off... ouchies.

I decided to bring water and a power gel for the half way point. Trying to get better and downing that jelly ****.

Today's plan - 1.5 miles warm up , 7 miles marathon pace, 1.5 cool down.

Here is your daily photo at the start of the path:

As you see, it is pretty dark and this photo was taken next to a street light. Bikes on the path that didn't have their light on looked like slender man and were kinda freaky:

I didn't see another runner until the totem pole, which was also a little odd (was about 5:15am at this point).

After my warm up 1.5 miles, I put myself into gear, or at least I thought I did. I have my GPS give me lap pace every half mile. My first beep was about 7:11 then almost 7:20. I was distraught. 15-20 seconds slower than I needed to be. I immediately thought over everything to make an excuse. Too much to eat last night? Bad food choices? Did I run too fast Wednesday? Am I aiming for too fast a pace? Should I just run it and forget this run happened? I started feeling glum. Then my GPS buzzed again, 6:50. Well then. Either I just need a longer warm up period or there was a bad GPS signal for that last mile. My times evened out to a +/- 5 seconds of my marathon pace goal. Mile 5 was the turn around and where I slowed for a moment to take the power gel. Not my favorite. I don't know that I'll get that brand again. The pace felt comfortable once I warmed up, which was good to feel. First and last mile of my run below are a bit slower as I stopped for a photo and didn't pause it.

The sky was pretty cloudy this morning, which made for a sky that resembled a princess coloring book through 6am.

The gnats didn't seem as bad today, but they were still all over my torso and neck like glitter after a wild party at an arts and craft store.

Get a run in today?

How long do you give yourself to eat those gel things during a race so you don't end spilling your water in the process from taking too long?

Happy Friday!