Morning runs make my day awesomesauce

I just finished two presentations — one for career day tomorrow, where I’ll be speaking to a bunch of high school sophomores, and another one for work that will be fun and easy. If you knew me 6 months ago, you would know that I would be a hot mess of anxiety having to get up in front of people and talk like some sort of expert for > an hour this week. But practice makes perfect and I feel pretty good about tomorrow.

I had some good runs this weekend. I got up early — 6:30 a.m. — for both of them and I feel great.  I hadn’t gotten up early for a run in months. Most of them have been after I get out of work, late at night, pushing dinner back to 9 p.m. I liked it so much this weekend that I got up at 6:30 a.m. today and did an easy recovery run before work.

I really do feel better about myself when I run early. It’s like there is more to my day when I do it. It puts my head in a good place when I leave the house and go to work. But I still feel guilty sitting here at night eating dinner at a reasonable hour and not going to the gym.

Sugarloaf marathon training starts on Sunday. With rest! 🙂

I did two mid-distance runs instead of a traditional “long” run this weekend (which, to me, is more than 8 miles). I ran 5 miles at a pretty fast pace on Saturday (9:37/mile) and 7 miles at an easier-but-still-faster-than-marathon-training pace on Sunday (10:17/mile). This morning I woke up and felt a little stiff, something I haven’t felt after a run for awhile. I’m sure I could pound out a half-marathon at my current level of fitness if I wanted to, but I’m not sure it would be pretty.

I want speedwork to be a bigger part of marathon training this time around than it was the first time. The first time, I was just concerned about building the endurance to finish. And this time, I’m still concerned about that, but I think that I have a lot to learn about running that I can only learn by running fast. And its so much fun.

I did some speedwork last week, dialed back the pace for the longer runs this weekend, and then I kept my pace way back for a recovery run today. It made me appreciate how much easier running has gotten from where it was when I first started training for these races. Now I already know that I can run for an hour, so I’m playing with how much more effort I can put in and maintain that effort for that time.

I also got to run with people this weekend for the first time in what felt like forever. Friends! I missed them.

Pattie Reaves

About Pattie Reaves

I'm a new mom and renegade fitness blogger at After the Couch. I live in Brewer with my husband, Tony, our daughter Felicity, and our two pugs, Georgia and Scoop.