Thursdailies

I was able to get a surprise last night as I was getting ready to leave work. My wife called me and said that the kids were going to spend the night with their auntie, and that they would be coming back home tomorrow. That very rarely ever happens. We have never let our kids stay overnight anywhere, except for with their grandparents in Ft. Lauderdale... so this was the first time we were doing this. But after our initial reservations, we decided to have a little fun with the break that we had. My Wednesday work day was a 12.5 hour shift at work, so I got home around 9 pm; so we decided to go and catch a 10 pm movie. Didn't get home until close to 1 am. It was so nice to get out though. I woke up at 6:30 (tired as can be) and headed out to do a 10 mile run. It started out crappy (literally)... and I didn't feel well at all. The lack of sleep, and pounding down popcorn and fruit punch at 11:30 pm, while at the movies was catching up to me very early in the run. But there are times that I have felt worse than this, and usually, my body just starts to warm up during the run.... which is exactly what happened this morning. By the 3rd mile, I was feeling better and luckily the sun didn't come out, so it made the run quite manageable. Usually when I run on the Suncoast Trail, it is very nice quiet time for me because you just don't find too many people biking or running during the week at that time in the morning. This is pretty much how it looked this morning on the Suncoast Trail:

While running, I glanced down at my watch and saw that I was running at a pace that only 1 year ago, was my pace that I ran my tempo runs at. It was very satisfying to think of how my fitness levels have improved over the last 10-12 months. I guess that is why my relationship with running is still in the "honeymoon" phase... because my improvements have been so drastic, that it just seems like this is how it will always be... but I know that is definitely not the case. I did think that when I used to run 9:30/mile runs, I never thought I would get to the point that I could run a 9:00/mile pace for more than 5 miles... but it happened. And the improvements have continued... so you never know. Anyways, I will continue to enjoy the "honeymoon" phase. This weekend, I will do a 5 miler on Saturday and a 13 miler on Sunday. That will put me at 36 miles for the week, which has been around my average before starting this structured program for Chicago.