Moving the long run to Monday

There was no running this weekend. But there was a weekend-long babysitting gig. And I'm beginning to think chasing after two boys (ages 4 and 5) was more tiring than the 7-mile run I had planned.

There was time spent playing Mario Kart on Wii and I was told numerous times by my 4-year-old nephew that I was going the wrong way. Who says you have to go in the right direction around the track? What if Yoshi wanted to go from the finish line to the starting line? That's what he wanted to do. But the 4-year-old? He wasn't having any of that. Then a sleep over. And a daylong trip to two parks where we played on the playground, played on the beach, played on the rocks, took a small hike through the woods and climbed the observation tower.

While my Mom took sleep over duties Saturday night, I went out with my Dad for a bit. He told me we weren't going to be out late. Which was fine by me, I was running on fumes by the time we left to go listen to the band. But apparently my definition of late and my Dad's definition? Not the same thing. I could barely stay awake by the time we got home. And I had good intentions to get up and run my 7 miles before meeting my Mom and the boys for lunch.

The alarm went off. I did get out of bed. But only to throw a pair of capris in the wash so I'd have clean pants to wear. Then I went back to bed for an hour. Had some food, went back to my parents' house with intentions to watch the Packer game and promptly slept through the second and third quarters. Oops. But I was tired.

So no running this weekend meant I had some miles to make up tonight. Since I didn't want to become roadkill, I headed over to the running track at the YMCA for my 7 miles. And you know what I realized tonight? I actually like the track. Yes. I'm running in circles. A lot of circles. But I like that more than the treadmill. And at least on the track I can run at my own pace rather than the treadmill where a machine is telling me how fast to go.

And tonight? Everything was clicking. Seriously. I felt good. Effortless almost. There were multiple sub-10 minute miles (I swear that's a first for me) and there was only one mile that was over 11 minutes - the final mile and that's because I took a very brief walk break during that mile. I'm actually pretty proud of my splits:

9:36
9:46
9:54
10:05
10:30
10:56
11:06

 I've got goals for Las Vegas in December. I'd love to run 11 minute/miles and finally get a 2:30 half marathon. And I know tonight was only 7 miles and I was starting to get tired by the end, but looking at those splits tonight? It makes me feel like my goal is definitely reachable. Eight more weeks.