Aaaaaahhhhh…

Gooooood run.  Running after work is hard.  After a full day of staring at my computer, it’s hard to motivate myself to get into my running clothes and hit the pavement.  On my way home last night, I got two good motivators in the form of local runners.  I passed one girl, which got me thinking about a run for myself…then passed another girl on my street, which got me motivated about a run for myself.  More than one name-less runner has motivated me to run when I’ve felt too tired, too cranky, too something-or-other.  But that’s a post for another day.

I’ve found a perfect warm up for my weekday runs:  take Bella along for part of it.  She gets some “mama” time with me and some exercise.  I usually take her for 1 mile (½ out, ½ back) and drop her back home before taking off for the remainder of my run.  As a lab, Bella just wants needs to play, sniff, and chase….squirrels, rabbits, snakes (eww).  And she needs to run.  Anything greater than 1 mile though and I risk Bella losing her focus completely.  On Sunday, she surprised me with rallying for 2 full miles.  She can be such a running rockstar when she wants to be. 

So I grabbed her special collar that she associates with “walkieeeeees” or “runs”, which always gets her excited.  We headed towards her ½ mile mark and stopped for her business, then slowed for the 2 barking dogs (electric fence) so she could say HI! or SHUT UP! – not sure which.  On our way back, we got to say HI to Murphy, Bella’s somewhat hyper boyfriend (German short haired pointer).  I then safely deposited my happily panting dog home to cool off by the fan.  Now it was my turn.

It was humid and, since I haven’t run more than 5 miles over the past 2 weeks (vacation and then sick), I purposely kept it slow.  The inactivity over the past week especially has left me sore, with a nagging hamstring and no good reason for it.  Then I just stopped thinking and ran. 

Splits:

1                 8:42

2                 8:23

3                 8:37

4                 8:27

I’m usually spot on with my pace, but from mile 3 to mile 4, I swore I had slowed considerably.  At least I have a good reason for feeling like I was running through molasses.

As Scott cooked us dinner, I sang.  Yeah, running suits me.