Getting Psyched About Running

For those of you who aren't from around the Twin Cities, you probably don't know about the incredibly AWESOME weather we've been enjoying for the last couple of weeks.  This time of year is usually when God flips the season switch from 'Summer' to 'Freeze-your-butt-off'.  This year, we've been blessed with sunny days and highs in the mid 70s.  If it wasn't for the fact that the sun starts to set at 6:30pm, you'd think it was June.

Since the weather is gorgeous, but the daylight is limited, I've been doing a lot more runs lately.  Yesterday, I did my first long run (more than 8 miles) since the Ironman.  My aim was to just get out and stretch my legs and 'see how it went'.  Unfortunately, my Garmin was out of juice, so I had to do the run 'al fresco' - no time, no heart rate, just me and the road.  So, I made a mental note of the time on the microwave and took off to run around Medicine Lake.

The run was great.  It was kinda nice not to have constant reminders of how fast (or slow) I was going.  I tried to keep track of how long I stayed stopped at stoplights and drinking fountains so I could subtract that from my total time and get a general idea about how my pace was.  I was a little surprised that there weren't more people out there, considering now nice it was, but who am I to judge?

I kept the pace steady.  It wasn't easy, but it wasn't too strenuous either.  I just wanted to enjoy the evening, so I went at the 'speed of fun'.  In any event, I eventually made it home, about 20 minutes before sunset.  I did a little math and determined that I had been running for about 1:44 - give or take.  Then I hopped on 'mapmyrun.com' to figure out how far I had gone - 10.94 miles to be exact.  So, to make a long story even longer, during my 'fun run' I kept the same pace as my 1/2 marathon during the Liberty 1/2 Ironman.  Not too shabby.

Okay.  So, now I'm SUPER psyched about running.  In fact, I'm so psyched that I went ahead and signed up for the Team Ortho Monster Dash 10-Miler.  This will be my first running-only race since high school, and back in high school, we only ran 5Ks.  At more than 3 times that distance, this one will be interesting.

I'm also pretty excited for tomorrow.  The weather's supposed to be fantastic (again), and the Vikes don't play until Monday night, so I'm going to do a nice long bike ride, complete with photos and maybe even a good meal.  I'm going to enjoy tomorrow.  I'm going to enjoy the CRAP out of it.

In the mean time, I'm just going to kick my feet up with The Wife and enjoy what hopefully won't be the last Twins game of the year.  Good stuff.