This morning started out on a bad note. My son had his alarm clock set to 6AM with his door open. So when it went off, it woke me and Christi up from our sound sleep. That would not have been so bad except that he was actually sleeping in the Family Room so the thing just kept ringing and ringing! I finally got up, saw his empty room, then found him downstairs sleeping. So of course, I did him the same favor and woke 'him' up, and made him go turn off the alarm. LOL
Well, now that I was awake, I might as well get cleaned up and dressed and make breakfast. I was planning on a Long Run at 8AM at the gym with Mike so at least getting up early on a Saturday wasn't a total loss. I had some greek yogurt and oatmeal for breakfast, figuring it was going to be 1.5 hours before the run.
Got to the gym at 7:45am, changed into my running gear, and was so focused, I walked right passed Mike! :)
We started out at an easy 11:30/mm pace. He was tapering for his next Marathon (in Little Rock, with the world's largest finishers medal) so he was only going for a 10K run. I was shooting for an 8-miler. I was a little worried about a pulled muscle in my mid-back area (I guess from sleeping in a weird position?) and how that would affect the run.
We chatted for the first half of the run and then just focused on the run. The back was bothersome for the first 1/2 mile but after that, I didn't even notice it. What I did notice was the feeling of being 'full' from breakfast (NOTE to Self: no oatmeal before a run). But other than that, I felt very fluid in my motion, and my form was looking pretty good (I was right next to a mirrored wall). My breathing was in step with my cadence, and I wasn't feeling at all stressed. Everything was 'working' for me! I was straddling between Zones 2 & 3 so my heart was happy too!
I had a Peppermint GU after 45 minutes, which tasted really good by the way, and kept on going. When Mike reached his 10K, he said his goodbyes. I still had 2 more miles to go. So I bumped up the pace to 10:45/mm for the last few miles and I still felt good. In fact, my heart rate didn't even change! That surprised me.
The next thing I knew, I was at 8.5 miles! So I hit the "cool down" button and let the Treadmill bring me down slowly. When the run was all over, I had traveled 8.81 miles and burned 1300 calories. And I totally could have run for more, probably even finished 13.1. But the training plan didn't call for that. So I showered, got a protein shake on the way out, and headed back home.
Total miles for the week came to 24.5! Pretty pleased with that!
Some days just feel good! Why today? I am not sure yet. I don't think it was the oatmeal! LOL