Time for Good Runs!

Despite an overwhelming desire to stay in bed all morning, I did push myself to get up and run today (much to my dog's dismay, who was all set to spend all morning napping on my bed). Although I'd initially thought that I would get a week of 15 minute runs in, I decided to push myself this morning and make it 18 minutes. Not a big difference, but I'd love to get back to running 35 minutes easily sooner rather than later, so I need to get a move on!

The weather today was cool and overcast, but it's still a bit humid. I could tell this was playing havoc with me as I got through the first five minutes, and my mind definitely wanted me to take a walking break or reduce my overall time. But I knew that I'd never get back to where I want to be without ignoring the whiny voice in my head, so I just kept running. My legs felt pretty good (though my quads were definitely SORE for the two days after my first run back) and it was just my lungs holding me back - my level of endurance has definitely decreased. I'm hoping that because I'm starting back up running in September, that I'll have a number of good months of running under my belt (and that it won't really snow too much this winter), so that I can really be committed to running next summer. Or maybe I'll just join a gym for the summer, so that I don't have to deal with the humidity!

At any rate, I was definitely struggling towards the end of the run, but I just kept focusing on how good I would feel to finish it and how much I wanted to be able to run that 18 minutes easily soon. I finally hit my mark, and ran 1.65 miles, or a 10:54 pace. It's nice to see that I'm running a decent pace when I feel like I'm running SO SLOWLY and I hope that bodes well for future runs!

I had wanted to get this run in yesterday (which would have allowed me to wallow in bed for the morning), but we had a nasty two-day storm hit the coast here. I know that north Jersey had some rain too, but we got hit hard enough to flood the road that I run on (further up from where I was today), and a lot of surrounding towns had several feet of water in the road. I was lucky to avoid that, but the rain and wind were so loud on Thursday night that I didn't get very much sleep, as I worried about my new fence and crawl space. So I decided that although I don't mind a good run in the rain, it's probably not that safe to run with high winds that can fling debris at you. I'm not crazy or anything!

But speaking of crazy, I am planning to do this year's Ocean Running Club Reindeer Romp, which is a 5k held in early December. I know some people might think that's nuts, but I'd rather run in the cold than the heat! Plus, it should be fun. It also looks like they do a winter running series in the same park as the summer series, starting in January, so I might sign up for that as well. The more 5k's I can push myself to do, the better!

My next run should be on Monday, and I'm planning to push my time up to 20 minutes!