Week 8

Today was my best run in two weeks.  Not sure what was different other than everything just seemed to click.  I was definitely surprised since I expected it to be a really bad run since I only slept about 4 hours last night.  Maybe it was that I was well hydrated and had a fairly healthy dinner.  Maybe it was the ice cream for dessert.  Maybe it was my weight being 2 pounds lower.  Shoot, could have been the 47 degree temperature.  Don't really care, all I know is that the run felt good.

Ran in the jacket again today.  I discovered that leaving the sleeves loose instead of tightening them around my wrist increased the air flow so it didn't get as hot.  All I had to do was unzip it a little near the end of the run to keep from feeling uncomfortably sweaty.  I think I prefer the jacket for cold running than the long sleeve cycling undershirt I wore last week because it is a little more flexible with zippers etc.  This is good since I don't feel like spending $30 a pop for long sleeve running shirts.  I suppose I could get some normal long sleeve t-shirts, but I like the running/cycling shirt material.

Finally, the run report.  I actually started off at a fairly good clip, I think because I wanted to get the blood pumping due to the cold.  My stride felt more like I was jogging than plodding or shuffling.  Again, just seemed to flow.  I didn't get around to making a playlist or my own podcast for week 8, so I don't know what my time was at the 1 mile mark.  At the halfway point, I was 1.4 to 1.5 miles, so maybe a little faster than 6mph.  Since none of the GPS programs for my iPod seem to work properly, I stopped using them.  Based on memory and gmap-pedometer, I was just short of 2.8 miles at the end of the podcast for the run portion.  I tacked on a little more and hit 2.9 miles total when I was to my cool down point.  Wednesday I'm going to tack on enough to make sure I do at least 3 miles.  I've mapped out several routes between 3 and 3.5 miles, just have to pick one. 

The best thing about today was getting to the cool down with plenty of juice left in the tank even after I sped up for that last .2 miles.  And realizing that if I add .2 more, I'm running a 5k in about 30 minutes.  It's amazing that in just 7 weeks I've gone from skipping the last 1 minute interval of 8 to running for 27+ minutes.