Mental Rest Day

This weekend was crazy busy and jam packed with fun! From a concert to late night darts, wall climbing, house cleaning, three trips to art museums, dinner + brunch out, board games, thrifting and picture framing + hanging I was sound asleep (on the couch, during a movie) by 9p last night. When my alarm went off at 5:42a this morning I knew that today just wasn't going to go as planned. Shhhh.. don't tell but I'm taking a "sick" day from work to recover mentally.

After crawling back under the covers for another 3 hours (it. was. glorious. and so necessary!) I was almost ready to start my Monday. I fed the kitties (much later than usual- they were famished) and relocated to the couch to catch up on emails and watch reruns of Bones on Netflix. I knew that I wanted to use my "sick day" to get in a nice run outside since I missed my normal weekend run. It was sunny but still quite chilly so I planned on putting the run off a bit and ate a snack to hold me over.

Whole wheat toast + PB2 + tiny smear of raspberry jam + 1/2 banana + shredded coconut

I was out the door around noon and it was only about 30 degrees but so sunny! I had 50 minutes on my training plan but knew that I'd prefer to get in 6 miles (but no more, my calf/achilles has still been tight and annoying, but luckily it felt great while I was running). I don't know what it was- the weather, waiting for a later time of day, a solid snack, 2 days off running- but my run was awesome and so speedy (for me ;-) ). I finished up feeling on top of the world.

Splits:

mile 1  8:33

mile 2  9:04

mile 3  8:36

mile 4  8:37

mile 5  8:28

mile 6  8:15

total:  51:34, average pace 8:36 (!!!)

I am so pleased with these times! As I've mentioned (only a dozen times or so) my goal for this upcoming half is sub 2, which means a 9:09 average pace. I admittedly pushed it a bit at the end because I knew that I had been maintaining a sub 9 pace, but overall this run came pretty easily to me and I am really starting to see my speed work pay off. I have a 10K coming up at the end of this month and I'm almost tempted to aim for a sub 50, but I think that might be pushing it. It'll be my first 10K so it'll automatically be my personal best, I think I'll just take what I can get and focus on a speedier one after the half + the duathlon. We'll see.

Now I'm stretching, refueling with eggs + cottage cheese + mini bagels and planning something super stellar for dinner.  Hopefully I'll be back later with a recipe to share!

Not too shabby for a Monday (or a "second Sunday" :-) )