5 miles & a beautiful weekend

First off, I must say this...it has been a really great weekend, just really beautiful for many simple reasons, reasons I won't speak of because I've got to just hold it all quietly inside for a while. I want to let my heart believe and appreciate the simple happiness of things like Sunday brunch and Christmas errands with the only man I would want to spend such simple joys with.

The one part I CAN and WANT to talk about is that I hit 5 MILES today on my run! Hell yeah my blog babies!!!!

 
I made the effort to get up early this morning, despite the cold, gray skies. Despite the temptation to just skip it and stay home or head out to breakfast earlier...no...these runs are my very important ME time. They are the equivalent of a girl's night out, they are the equivalent of a shopping spree...both of those things being things I don't do. So what do I do? RUN. Run until my mood is lifted, my heart is pounding, my mind is quiet and all I need to focus on is the pavement, my pace and my endurance. Today's goal was to hit the 5 mile mark. I KNEW I could do it. That's the funny thing. I'm starting to realize with every mile I accomplish, I realize the next mile is equally possible. The parameters of my once deemed impossible accomplishments is dramatically changing. And I feel stronger and more beautiful for it. I'm also starting to pay attention to "split" times. Something I wasn't paying much attention to. But i wanted to see if by the end of my miles am I running stronger or slower. Turns out my second best paced of the full five miles was my LAST mile. My worst? My first mile! What the...??? So since I'm now aware of splits, i'm curious to track them and see if this is a reflection of what kind of runner I am (ie will I be a negative split kind of race runner - stronger in the second half than the first). 

I've decided now that I'm at the 5 mile mark, I will stick with this as my max mile marker for the next few weeks so that I can improve my pace and endurance. Once I'm where I want to be (closer to 10min for each mile) I will start the gradual push onward and upward again. I'm registered for a 10k in early June 2013 and at this rate I have plenty of time to train properly and without pressing too hard. I want to do this the right way.

And speaking of right way, I also need to get back to strength training. Although I'm loving how strong my legs are getting and keeping the abs in check with the running, i was no doubt stronger when I was pushing some weights around. A return to the gym is immanent. Simply because I miss it.

Overall, as I said, this was a really great weekend on many accounts. As for the running, I will continue to run my two mile runs during the week (usually 2 weekday runs, one long run on the weekend) and build my endurance. Simply the more I run, the better I get.

And yes, I realize nearly this ENTIRE blog entry was about running, but it truly is something that is becoming a part of who I am. 

Love me, love my run.