En Courant

Yup, that's right, I just used le gérondif for courir, which means "to run" to start my post. Bask in my Francophilia! Or, better still, Basque.

I had a super easy 12 miler on Saturday and pretty much loved every minute of it. I really think half marathons are the distance for me, but I'm an attention whore and kinda love all the training wrapped up in the marathon. So I'll stick with both. Anyway, in order to stay on schedule, I got up super early, ate some breakfast, and started my run at 5 AM again. Nearly one full loop of my run went by before I saw anyone. The weather was great...nice and cool with gray skies. Oh Autumn...where have you been all my life? By the time I hit 12 miles, I was pretty tired, so I decided to walk the 1.5 miles back to my house and stretch out my legs a bit.

When I arrived back at my doorstep, the sun was up and people were just starting to get moving. This is one of the things I like best about running and training. I finished 12 miles before a lot of people in my 'hood were even awake yet. I just love that feeling. I think even when I take a break from training (this Winter, after MCM) I'll still get up and run early in the morning.

I ate a banana and then took a shower. After that I ate some more food and stretched for a while before deciding that yes, I needed a nap. A nice long nap ensued and here we are at Monday.

So my run this morning was bleh. There were pretty high winds outside, so I decided to treadmill it and then have a shorter run outside this evening. I really do hate the treadmill because it makes me feel even slower than I really am. To run at a 10:00 pace, I should be running at 6 miles per hour on the 'mill. Screw that. I can barely maintain that pace for 15 minutes, let alone for an hour. In most cases, I run at 5.5 mph. That'll have to be good enough for now. I hope anyway.