Morning runners are friendlier

Or at least so they seem! I lost count of how many nods, smiles, "mornin'"s, and half waves I got this morning from fellow runners (probably at least 15!) Oddly, that was quite encouraging. I got out on the Greenway this morning for an intended 5 mile run. It was probably about 8:45? After the initial 1/2 mile of lungs rebelling against me, I started to glide. It was a really nice run on a cold, sunny morning. In fact when the nike+ lady said "1 mile to go" at the 4 mile point I was kind of sad! If I didn't have to go to work this morning, I would have gone ahead and done tomorrow's 7 miles instead. It was nice to realize at that point that I had finished those 4 miles fairly effortlessly. (yea me!) I'm looking forward to tomorrow's run for sure. I was planning on enjoying the warm weather later in the day, but *might* be motivated to go out earlier..... It just goes to show I guess I am a morning runner as long as I can do them without getting up at dark o'clock.

Oh, and I ended up going 5.5 instead of 5. :)

Running with Friends

A friend from Indiana was in town for the week for a business training class. Luckily, we were able to arrange to meet up a couple of times while she was here. The first night, we just had dinner since it was too late for a run (already dark). But we planned for a run on Friday afternoon. We headed to a nearby park that I knew of, but had never run in. Luckily there was a bit of a running trail, so we decided on 3 miles and started out. The trail was a bit convoluted with some false trails leading to dead ends. We did eventually get going the right way and had a nice, mildly hilly run! Here's the Nike+ graph for it. I have to say, this is one of the first times in my life I felt faster than someone! I don't run with others very often and it was quite odd to feel like I needed to slow down! I could have gone farther for sure.



You can see where we had to turn around after the first mile or so, due a dead end (led out to a regular road!)

Here's a photo of us post run and post dinner in the lobby of her hotel:



I had a few other good runs that week, as well. It's amazing what a little consistency can do. I'm trying to take advantage of any days I don't have to work 2 jobs to get in some afternoon runs when it's warmer. I will be doing some more pre-work freezing runs, though. It's just January, but I'm already looking forward to Spring!! We've still got many weeks of cold weather ahead, though.

I ended up not running for a week due to crazy scheduling/extreme weather (sorry, 12*F is too cold for me and the asthma). I had a nice run on the Greenway yesterday, though. It was great to make it out to that trail. I know every turn so well, that it's very comfortable to run there, despite the weather. Plus, with all the other folks out riding bikes, walking, playing with their dogs or running, there's plenty of scenery to take in. I've got 5 miles on deck for today. It's cloudy and still cold, so I'm not sure where I'll run them. Maybe I'll go back out to the Greenway?