hello city

I thought I'd write a short post to report out on yesterday's nine-miler, my first early morning run of the season. I will not include my time here so as to avoid a lecture from Dylana.

In order to make sure I get enough mileage in, I have been using the handy Gmaps pedometer to plan my longer routes in advance. Yesterday's run was a trip downtown and back. It was a beautiful day and everything seemed very serene since it was 9:00 AM on the Fifth of July. I always loved running through the city during my two years downtown and it was nice to return for a visit. One advantage (or silver lining) of these longer runs is that they will afford me the opportunity to go places on foot that were previously too remote for me to consider.

Though I had shadows of the pre-race butterflies before I set out (it'd been almost ten years since I had run this far), overall it was less of an event than I thought it would be. I don't want to minimize the challenge, because there were periods of fatigue and times when the running felt trance-like, but my body seems to put up with whatever I ask of it on any given day, and that is encouraging. I was predictably tired as I neared home, but didn't feel all that bad when I stopped. Could I have gone ten? Probably, but that's really a question for next Saturday. It's most likely a good thing that nine miles came and went without much fanfare, because the training schedule seems to indicate that these numbers will keep getting bigger.