Woo-freakin'-Hoo!!!!!

I had a FANTASTIC run this morning (sorry, Terri-- I guess it is your turn now for a great run). I ran eight miles at a 9:19 pace!!!! At the end, I felt like my chest was going to explode, but my legs felt great. It was my first run since the marathon and I am THRILLED with how well I did.

I met Laura this morning at Mission Bay. I am grateful that we met for a couple of reasons. First, if I was not meeting her, I don't think I would have hauled myself out of bed. I was reminded of a post I read by Chris (Gibtown Runner) last week when his daughter woke up in the middle of the night and he decided to sleep instead of run that morning. That would have been me had I not agreed to meet at 6:30. Last night (or more like early this morning) BOTH kids decided to wake up. Jackson was up at 2 a.m. complaining about a bug?? I think he had a bad dream. I put him back in bed, tucked him in and assured him there were no bugs (I did a quick visual to be sure *wink*). Then Amelia woke up because the cat (stupid cat-- there's another story from last night that I will get into on my other blog later) had pushed her door open, jumped on her bed and was up by her head. I removed the kitty, tucked her in and went back to bed. She woke up one other time about twenty minutes before my alarm went off. Grrr. It is SO rare for either one of them to wake during the night (especially Amelia!), so to have both of them up is unheard of. Figures. It is too hard for Gimpy to get up with them, so the task goes to Mommy. I was TIRED when I got up at 5:15.

The second reason I was glad to run with Laura is that she really helped me push myself to go faster. If you recall, she is the speedy one of our little running group. She ran the marathon around a minute per mile faster than us. I knew that she wouldn't be pushing herself to go particularly fast, but I also knew that her comfortable pace is much faster than my comfort pace. I was able to keep up with her and even carry on a conversation for most of the time.

At about 6.5 miles, I told her that I was going to put on my headphones and listen to music for the rest of the run. That totally helped. I couldn't hear myself breathe and that was probably a good thing. Laura told me that I was practically wheezing at the end. The congestion from the cold isn't 100% gone and I could really feel it in the end. Granted, we ended up running that last mile at an 8:45 pace. Wow... we were smokin'!

I am running a 10K next Sunday. It is an important milestone for me because this is the race that was my very first race one year ago. I ran it in 1:01 (a 9:52/mile pace) with really no training other than a couple of runs and my Stroller Strides classes. I want to do well so I can see how far I have come in one year, even though the bulk of my running has been in the last five months. Running today's eight made me have confidence that I can run that 10K at a pretty decent pace. I don't want to put too much pressure on myself though. I will be happy if I improve my time by two or three minutes. My fastest 10K on my Nike+ is 58:40, which is over two minutes faster than my race time. We'll see.....