A Glorious Morning Run

I knew I wanted to run today, but I was planning on heading out around 10 so I could sleep in some. My plans were derailed when I was woken up at 6 by a sick puppy. Gracie had thrown up all over my bed and was still getting sick. I didn't want to leave her outside all by herself to sleep so I sat outside with her until my parents woke up. At that point I was already awake and decided to just move the run up a couple hours.

I wanted to get in a longer run before my triathlon so I settled on 7 miles. Not incredibly long but definitely longer than I have been running lately. I decided to run with music even though I didn't want to do a hard run. Sometimes it's just nice to have a distraction. I started out at a very comfortable pace that turned out to be pretty quick for me. My splits were pretty consistent during the first half of the run and mind-blowing during the second half.

9:20
9:08
9:09
9:10

Somewhere between miles 5 and 6 I felt like I hit the wall. I was no longer running in the shade and the sun was sucking all of the energy out of me. I contemplated trying to push harder to maintain my pace but then I thought it would be better to listen to my body and do the last mile as a warm down.

8:59
9:00
8:44


I really have no idea how I ran sub-9 based on how I felt. I was sure I was running close to 10 min/mile! This run really shows just how far I have come in the last year too. This was the fifth time that I have done a seven mile run and was my fastest by more than five minutes! Last fall when I was training for the Baltimore Half Marathon I ran seven miles in 1:17:36 for an 11:05 pace. Today I finished in 1:03:36 with a 9:05 pace.

A couple months ago a 9:05 pace only existed during my hard or fast runs. I had run sub-9 before during hard runs but I never imagined I would be doing an easy longish (for me) run so close to a pace that starts with an eight. I think this is just the beginning though. I took almost two months off from running so I could focus on improving my cycling and because I was burned out from half marathon training. Now after my break I'm running significantly faster? I'll take it!