Saturday run

Saturday morning was busy. My folks were flying in from San Diego in the afternoon, so all the errands, cleaning, shopping and oh yeah, homework, had to be crunched in before they arrived. Amazingly enough, I was looking forward to getting in a run that morning as well and made it a priority. After all, many of my peeps were out running the Cross Timbers trail race up on Lake Texoma.

I get up at the crack of dawn nearly every day whether I want to or not. Even if it's a weekend. Sure enough, 6am, the eyes popped open for a new day. It was still a little too cool for this blood, so I got some cleaning done and made the list for the rest of the day.

By about 8:30 the mercury rose just enough and I was ready to roll. I decided that I'd do about 6 miles and wanted to get in a few small hills. There's a route through Highland Village that is perfect. I plotted the out-back up on mapmyrun.com, laced up the shoes, grabbed the iPod and left.

I almost always hate the first 1/2 to 3/4 mile as the legs warm up and stretch out. Usually, I'm ready to quit, but have to power through it. Same thing happened. But by the time I reached my turn at Brazos about a mile into it, they felt great. The music was playing hard (did you know Simon and Garfunkel have some great running pace tunes?). The pavement just flowed under the feet. It felt fantastic and I knew the pace felt great - less strained than usual.

The slow rolling hills start in at about mile 2. The last time I'd done this route was before the half marathon in December. I was struggling that time. This time, they didn't feel hard at all. I motored up them and by the time I realized it, I was at the turnaround point. I stood there for a moment, then looked ahead of me to the next hill which peaked about 1/2 mile away.

Aw, what the hell? I was still feeling strong, so I extended the run another 1/2 mile and conquored this next hill before turning around. I noticed several other runners heading out for their runs. Most everyone waves in this part of town, even if they're on the other side of the street. Nice.

At about mile 4-5ish, the boredom started kicking in. This is where I tend to walk a few minutes before running again. I'm normally not tired, just bored of the pace. This time, I managed to plow through it (some friends were in my head telling me not to stop) and continue.

Again, before I knew it, I looked up and noticed the water tower that's close to the 1-mile mark. Holy crap, I'm almost done? Sure enough I'd hit the turn back onto the main road and back to the house. The legs kicked in and I pushed the pace the last mile or so, only stopping briefly for the traffic light crossing. Amazing!

So I re-mapped with the turnaround point, and sure enough, I'd added an extra mile more than I'd planned. Yippee! I'm hoping more runs continue like this. It's encouraging.

Train hard, y'all.