What a good little helper.The past two days have been unbelievably warm and spring-like. I never really minded running in the winter this season, I have found as long as I wore the right clothes (my Nike face mask!) I warmed up within ten minutes and the cold really didn't bother me, in fact, I found that I really, really liked running when the snow was coming down. But Thursday, I found out how easy it felt to run when it wasn't freezing out and the sun was shining.
Thursday morning, I started my day with lifting at the gym and getting a Power Sandwich and Hazelnut coffee at Panera. The Power Sandwich is delicious and I feel like it actually fills you up and is healthy - it is made on whole wheat bread, with sharp cheddar, lean ham, and one egg - toasted on the panini maker. So good! Lots of protein.
After school, I planned on heading out to North Park for a 12 mile run (pretty long for me during the work week) including hills. I decided doing hills this season was important because the marathon does have a couple decent climbs, although it is still pretty flat for Pittsburgh. The plan was to run 4 miles to the hills behind the tennis courts by the lake, run four miles going up and down them (two different hills) and then run 4 miles back to where my car was. During the run, I decided that I should also try to push any hill I came to, at least keeping my pace the same and not slowing down going up.
During the first two miles of this run, it became clear to me my enthusiasm for wearing shorts, actually seeing other people outside running, and the sun shining down really influenced my pace. Splits (middle four were entirely either up a big hill or down a big hill, first four and last four were around the lake with a few smaller hills): 8:03, 7:21, 7:13, 7:07, 7:34, 7:37, 7:35, 7:27, 7:22, 7:24, 7:17, 6:59. Average Pace: 7:25, Total Time: 1:29:06
This run left me feeling more confident about my fitness and my hill running. I hope this translates into a good 20 mile race time when I race at the Spring Thaw next Saturday......
Even at 5:45 this morning I was able to run in shorts. It was a nice feeling to just roll out of bed and slip into shorts and a light long sleeve shirt instead of layering up, searching for hats, gloves, face mask, etc. I ran 7 miles easy and drank some chocolate milk after to help my muscles recover for my workout tomorrow :).
My corgi typist is tired, so that's it for now!
Perhaps if I had a corgi typist, I'd have time to run a marathon.
ReplyDeletecorgi typists are very helpful.
ReplyDelete