triumphant at last

Lately my runs have been mediocre at best.  I have gone into them a little tired, a little pressed for time, even a little hungover... and I haven't been that happy or motivated.  I think it was both a physical and a mental issue.  My injury from the USMC Mud Run certainly played a part.  At my ER visit they told me that I couldn't sweat "excessively" until the Dermabond came off my forehead, which meant no running for a couple weeks.  A couple weeks doesn't seem like much, but it is long enough that I lost my groove... until yesterday.
After dropping the boys off at school I hit the trail (for the first time in ages) where I did most of my training for the VA Beach half marathon.  The weather was cool and the sun was shining.  And for the first time in  a while, it felt really good to run.  I set out for a six mile tempo run, thinking that if I wasn't moving fast enough I would cut it short.  But I was moving just fine; faster than I expected even.  At the 3 mile turn around I was surprised both at my time and at how low my heart rate still was... so I picked it up a bit and pushed myself to a nine minute/mile pace for the last three.  Overall I did 6+ miles in 55 minutes and I felt awesome!! 
I know that not every run is going to be great, but runs like yesterday are the reason we lace up those sneakers time and again.