Sunday Running

I had the best run yesterday that I had to tell you about. I had a 5 mile run planned and I woke up in the morning totally not feeling ready to run. I  made a commitment to try to run outside for all my long runs. This is for selfish reasons on my part…I just hate the treadmill so much that I am not sure I can do more than about 3 miles before I start contemplating all the ways to get OFF the treadmill as quickly as possible.  But, it will help in the trail run in April, so it serves as double duty goodness 🙂

Are you going running? Can I come?

Anyways, I had made plans with my neighbors to run outside on the White Pine Trail (Nathan doesn’t like me to run alone, and Harley is not up for the long runs anymore…poor boy). I met the neighbors Scott and Sara at the trail entrance, and noticed how great the weather was. It was about 27 degrees, no wind. The trail had just a light dusting of snow on it, so I was super psyched. I HATE IT when the trail has more than a couple of inches of snow, as it makes me feel super sluggish and super slow. Anyway, we made a plan to all start together, and they would run 7 miles while I ran 5 (they are much faster than me…just saying).

Then if we felt good, we would all run an extra mile together at the end. I had anticipated keeping a pace of between 12 and 12:30 minutes per mile but noticed at the beginning I was running about 11:30 per mile. I felt great, so I thought I would just go with it. I had signed up for a virtual 5K for charity, so the beginning of the run was going to be for time for this. (Now that I think about it I totally should have said something about it earlier. Nothing like telling you about something after the fact when it doesn’t matter anymore!)

I ended up running 5 miles in 61:35, with my 5K time getting a little screwed up but recorded at 37:57. I use my GPS on my phone, and I think it got lost in the trees because the GPS went from 3 miles to 3.3 miles with nothing in between. So my 5K was a little long, but it’s for charity so I didn’t care. I will say though that a good trail makes all the difference in the world!! If you recall, the first time I ran on the trail with tons of snow, I did 4 miles in 62:20 and thought I might die out there! It was a much better run today! We all ended up ending at pretty much the same time too which was nice. I got to the finish line first and had just enough time to walk to the car and grab a little water before Scott and Sara finished. We all took another mile jog and ended on a good note. The temperature dropped though by the end of the run, and I started coughing my brains out due to my asthma. Cold weather and I just do not get along!! I felt sorry for Sara though because she also had trouble with the cold, as she has been sick recently. Today I was supposed to run 3 miles with Scott this morning but woke up to 9 degree temps and wind, so I bailed. Sorry Scott!! I am a wus! I am planning on getting my miles in on the treadmill today though, so don’t worry.