Awesome Run - One Happy Camper! :)

Day#4, Week #2 Road Work training

6.5K @ 46:18

Avg. Pace 7:04 min/km

Boy, was I ever surprised and excited when I saw that pace after uploading my Garmin! :) :) This is the sweet part about being a slow, beginner runner and working your way up the running ladder ... there are soooo many "I did it!" milestones along the way! :) :)

I took yesterday off from running after all. My training schedule calls for a "5K or optional rest day." Although I am keen to run as often as I can (make hay while the sun shines sorta-speak) and to adhere to my training schedule as closely as possible, the weather was just crappy crappy crappy all day, raining or drizzling non-stop. I took this as a sign that I was meant to stay out of my sneakers and enjoy that optional rest day after all! I am a huge believer in rest days - I took 2-4 of them every week since March :) - so it makes sense for me to continue to walk my talk - LOL! (however, it was still cool to see how well I did running six days in a row last week and earning my highest weekly mileage to date :) .... ).

So back to today ... I headed out the door with Wallace and Kim. It was the coldest day to date to run, but I was fine wearing the same running clothes from Tuesday ... yes, I am one of those people who wears used running clothes. I can get away it so I do! Lucky me for not needing to wear deodorant most of the time and being able to wear clothes a few times before needing to wash them (usually because I have spilled food on them, or they have accumulated dog hair, not because they are stinky). But I digress ... wearing my used clothing, I ran my usual 6.5K route and not once looked at my Garmin for pace - I only checked it twice for mileage to ensure I was on track. I got lost in my thoughts, do not recall any time during my run when I felt tired or sluggish, and just enjoyed what I thought was a nice and easy relaxed run. I had a nice cool down walk, had a great hot shower as soon as I walked in the door (and put my 2X used running clothes in the laundry!), made my after run protein shake, downloaded the Garmin and voila! not what I was expecting! :)

4th km - avg. pace 6:55

5th km - avg. pace 6:54

I am happy because my training runs are never this fast. My last few races have been at sub 7 minutes paces, but I attribute this to my adrenaline kicking in to push myself. This is the fastest I have run to date in a regular, non-race, "relaxed" run. Woo hoo! It feels great being that much closer to my goal of cracking sub 7 on a regular basis. :) :) Well, regular basis on clean pavement. The snow is going to start flying soon and, similar to hot and humid summer days, that's when one's true average pace disappears for a period of time!

On another note, I have registered for the New Year's Eve Resolution Run 10K through the Running Room and in various cities across Canada and even two States in the USA. :) I have the yellow and black jacket from last year's race because I registered in the 5K, but I had a terrible head cold the day of the race and opted not to run in it (not a fun, celebratory New Year's Eve for me in 2009. I am wearing the jacket in my header picture at the top of this page, and I really like it). All summer, I tried to keep registered two runs ahead so this is in keeping with my registration practices. :)