Hello and happy Friday!
My workday today will be short – I have an in-person Anne The RD client this morning (I’ve been seeing most clients virtually through Skype or phone, but have a few clients I meet at local coffee shops – hopefully someday I will be able to afford an office!), and then after lunch Matt and I are making the drive down to North Carolina for Easter! Matt’s brother Chris and his wife Jess live in Winston Salem, so we’ll be spending the weekend there with them and Matt’s parents, who are also driving down. I’m looking forward to seeing that Carolina blue sky again. 🙂
Since I knew I’d be out of town this weekend, I decided it would be smart to get my half marathon training run in a couple days early so I didn’t have to worry about it while we were gone. Luckily, my friend Karen was on board for a Thursday 10 miler!
As you guys know, I just ran the Rock ‘n’ Roll USA half marathon a couple weeks ago, and my new half on the docket is the Nike Women’s Half on April 28! I’ve never done more than one half marathon in a season before, but at least this means I don’t have to start from scratch with training, right? My goal is just to maintain my current running fitness with a couple long runs between now and then without burning out, because I still have the ZOOMA Annapolis half on June 1, too.
Karen and I set out with a general idea of our route but decided to see what we were in the mood for once we got downtown.
Running over the Memorial Bridge – I spy the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial!
Once we got downtown, we decided instead of doing the usual Lincoln/mall loop that we would mix it up and head over to the Jefferson Memorial and the Tidal Basin to see if the Cherry Blossoms were blooming yet!
Running down Hains Point (this was actually the only time I’ve run down here outside of a race):
And then we made it! Sadly, no Cherry Blossoms had come out to play yet. Boo! We made a pact to come back again for another run in a week or two. Must see them!
When we reached Jefferson, we stopped for some fuel. I’ve been alternating between the Hammer Gel and the Clif Shot Gel. Today was a Hammer Gel day!
From there, we ran around the Tidal Basin, back over Memorial Bridge, down along the Potomac River…
Back up the hill of death from Rosslyn to Courthouse, then finished it off with 2 more flat miles. Karen and I ended up getting into some really good life-related conversations for the second half of the run and the miles literally flew by. Before I knew it, we were done!
Splits:
- Mile 1: 8:43
- Mile 2: 8:44
- Mile 3: 8:47
- Mile 4: 9:09
- Mile 5: 9:05
- Mile 6: 8:34
- Mile 7: 8:46
- Mile 8: 9:24
- Mile 9: 8:57
- Mile 10: 8:55
Total distance: 10 miles. Total time: 1:29:08. Average pace: 8:54 minute/miles.
I finished the run feeling very thankful. Thankful that I can run. Thankful that running 10 miles, while it will always be challenging, is no longer insanely hard. Thankful that Karen and I met through my blog last fall and she’s now turned into a good friend. Thankful that both of us have alternative work schedules and can run 10 miles on a Thursday morning – even if that means I work late into the night, as I did last night, I’m so lucky to be able to be my own boss and manage my own schedule. Thankful that while I’m sure I’ll never completely have life figured out, I feel much better career-wise than I did 5 years ago. Karen and I talked some yesterday about how we spent a lot of our 20’s trying to figure out what we wanted and waiting for life to happen to us. It wasn’t until we stopped waiting around for life to happen and made it happen ourselves that we really found what we were looking for.
What are you feeling thankful for lately?
