I managed to drag myself out of bed on time this morning. Alarm sounded at 4:40 am and I got up, got dressed, fed the dogs, let them out, let them in, and set out on my run. The plan was to go at least three miles. It is only 15 weeks until the Aramco Houston Half Marathon. I need to be increasing my miles steadily but I felt so bad on my run last Friday that I cut my long run in half going only three miles. In TKD class on Saturday I also felt unusually tired and found what is usually fairly easy to manage to be very hard and rather painful. As a result, I decided that perhaps my late nights, my thyroid, and perhaps something else was affecting me and that perhaps I needed a rest so I skipped my Sunday run. I decided on my run this morning that if I wasn't feeling badly, if I was feeling better, I would go four miles instead of just three. When I hit the 1.5 mile mark, I was feeling good enough that I carried on until I reached two miles then I turned around.
The route that I take in the dark morning hours is along the main road in and out of my neighborhood. The advantage is that I can use the headlights to see (except when they blind me!) and the proximity of awake people to give me a sense of security. Honestly, I am more afraid of running into a coyote (our neighborhood is on the edge of development) than I am of being attacked by a person. The traffic makes both scenarios less likely.
Along my route is an elementary school. The pavement there is well lit and it is approximately one quarter mile between the road before the elementary school and the road after the school. I make a point of running faster between these two roads. This morning I hit a pace of 8:22/mile on the way out and 7:56 on the way back along that stretch. Not to bad! I felt like dying at the end by I did it.
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| My route |
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| The cold hard facts. Calories are a bit low though (400 Cal) |
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| Not too bad! Miles 2 and three are my target pace. |
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| Working on not walking at all. |
I am looking forward to cooler weather. It was in the lower seventies and nearly 100% humidity this morning. I was drenched by the time I got home. The weather report for Friday morning, my long run day, looks more favorable but SATURDAY morning looks even better: 59 deg F vs. 68 deg F! I look forward to every day being below 70 deg F in the morning. Unfortunately I have to work at a TKD tournament beginning early on Saturday so there isn't enough time to get in a 6 mile run before I have to leave at 7:30 am unless I get up REALLY early. I may be able to run fairly far but I am not very fast.
