Runner's High

I'm sitting here eating second breakfast before dashing off to take my boyfriend's yoga class.  I'm just back from a rockin' run and still basking in the joy. This was the first good one of the year, the first one in many weeks that hasn't felt like a task. Today, I smiled and said hi to every runner and biker I passed along the way. I appreciated the raindrops still hanging from the pine needles. The weather forecast was for rain all day. Most of my run was a bath of clean sunshine.

This runner's high feeling is the reason I've been trucking through the training these past few weeks. I haven't had a run this good since my foot injury at the beginning of November. Today was the third time in the past three weeks that I've run an 8-mile route from the Forest Lawn Mortuary through Griffith Park and back to the Mortuary, but the last two times were tough. I felt it in my knees. Almost every step felt like it could be a stop. It took all my determination to keep going.

I still don't have the speed I had a few months ago, but today I felt like I was in perpetual forward motion. It felt great to catch up and sail past other runners. As I climbed up a long, slight incline, admiring the sunlight shining through the tree canopy, I drew closer and then passed two other women. I smiled "good morning" to them and they shouted after me, "You know there's a speed limit!" We all laughed. I felt fantastic.

After bonking last summer at mile 9 in an 11-miler, I've gotten better at fueling mid-run. Now for anything more than 6 miles, I bring something to replenish along the way. I had a Chocolate #9 at around 5.5 miles and checked my pace - 10 minutes per mile. There's a huge hill that slows me down at mile 3, but averaging 10:00/mile is a lot slower than I want to be for the half marathon in Feb. As soon as I washed the chocolate down with a swallow of water, I picked up the pace hoping to best my time from last week. Today, at Mile 5 I was at 9:43/mile. Then, I picked it up - Mile 6 was 9:19. Mile 7 was 9:50. And my last mile was 8:09 - I finished strong. Big smiles, today, especially knowing that the post-run yoga was going to feel great.


Next week, 9 miles.

TODAY'S RUN: 
Setting:
January 6, 2013.
Griffith Park, Los Angeles, CA
Mid-morning
Temperature in the high 40's
Run:
8 miles
1:17:03
average pace: 9:38 per mile