Finally!

I actually got my butt out of bed and went running during the week. It has been a couple of months since I have done that. It was cold (relatively speaking, in San Diego terms) and foggy and I didn't really feel like going. But, if I am going to break two hours in that half marathon next month, I need to run more than once a week! It was a pretty non-descript, uneventful run in my neighborhood. The only thing noteworthy was the mere fact that I went. I am glad that I did.

Sunday's run was nice. I did a relatively easy eight. It still shocks me that eight miles is an easy run. A year ago, that was unheard of--I'd get nervous at the thought of five or six. I dropped my dad off at the airport to fly back to Portland. I thought, while I was down there, I might as well run along the big bay. It was a nice change of pace. I parked across from the airport at a favorite park of ours and ran down to Seaport Village and back. I enjoyed the San Diego skyline, the tall ships and a beautiful morning.

I had forgotten to charge the Garmin, so I just used my Nike+ to tell me when to turn around. Luckily, it is running pretty accurate lately (it matched the Garmin exactly on Thanksgiving). It was actually freeing not to worry about my pace at all. I decided to take it easy and give myself a relaxing run through a beautiful city. Much to my surprise, when I listened to the results at the end of my run, I had averaged a pace of 9:17. Holy cow. According to my RW training plan, I should be doing my long runs slower than that. Oops. But I didn't feel like I was pushing myself particularly hard.