my AWESOME run

I'm not sure if it's because I finally had a great night's sleep where I woke up feeling completely rested, or if it's because I swam yesterday and really gave my legs a little recovery... but I had an AWESOME run today (yes that is CAPITAL and bold, because that is how good the run was).  Two days ago I went to the track at the crack of dawn to do sprint work and I struggled.  I did a two-mile run at 17:30 (8:45 miles) and then two one-mile runs at 8:40 before I called it quits (skipping the two half-mile sprints) and went home.  My two-mile pace was fine, but my mile pace was supposed to be 8:30 and I couldn't make it.  And I was pretty damn sure I wouldn't be able to make my half-miles at 4:05 (8:10 miles).  I was pretty bummed, but I still managed to cobble together six miles and I am finally accepting that not all runs are going to be great.

But today's run was absolutely AWESOME!  I opted for the treadmill (aka the dreadmill, considering how much I like it) and ran a warm up before starting what was going to be a three mile tempo (faster pace) run.  I started out with an 8:40 pace and felt great.  I had good music; the AC was wonderful and a mile or so in I kicked it up to 8:34.  Another mile and a half and I hit 8:27.  I felt so good I decided to add another mile and kicked it up to 8:20.  Overall I did 5.6 miles in under 50 minutes and my tempo pace for the four miles was around 8:30.  I felt like great.  I felt like I could have run another few miles at least.  I felt like a real runner.  It's for the days like today that we suffer through the tough runs.  Today I was strong.