12 miles today. 12 pre-dawn miles that took a mere 1:35 to run ... 5 months ago it took 2 hours. 25 minutes faster in 5 months. TWENTY FIVE minutes faster. it was a 7:55 pace. a strangely easy 7:55. am still a bit floored & perplexed - think surely i miscalculated somewhere. i messed with the watch a bit which is what has me worried that it wasn't that fast ... i stopped to have GU & stopped the watch at 45 minutes ... then, instead of hitting the HUGE RED BUTTON (what could be simpler, really - but somehow i keep messing it up) - i hit the stop button again which reset everything ... so i just started fresh & figured i would add my end time to 45 minutes. I came up to an intersection at about mile 10 that is usually a long one, so i stopped the watch to wait for light - but alas! no traffic, so i just booked across ... didn't reset watch until a few seconds later ... my end time was actually 1:32, but i threw on the extra 3 mintues just for good measure - wanted to make sure it was all kosher. So, there is a chance that it actually was 1:32 in which case i ran EVEN FASTER.
the bliss of my time aside - i hate running in the dark ... scares the bejeesus out of me. the first hour was long, dark & scary ... never saw another soul out until 7 am ... couldn't listen to any tunes until sun came up (i want to be sure to hear the creepy van pull up behind me before i get thrown in - what are those vans doing driving around at 6 am anyway? where do people have to go that early?) ... 7 miles is long without tunes. think it's why i ran fast -- i had the whole scared adrenaline thing going & i thought if i just ran faster it might make the sun come up sooner. clearly - no logic there, but i was busy being scared & doing all kinds of math/pace/time calculations in my head - wasn't much room for anything else.
scary darkness & blissfully fast times aside - i must say, my favorite part about getting up at 5:30 am & out door by 6, is being done - so when i am driving my daughter to ballet, through the park with all the other training groups starting their runs at 8:30, i can smugly think about how i am done. and i was fast.
3 comments:
Great post!
You are making amazing improvements! Keep it up.
I agree about the running in the dark, only I can't manage to get my lazy butt out of bed early. My dark runs are usually after the sun sets.
That still counts though...right??
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