8-mile run

Today marks the day when I ran the furthest I've ever run.  8 miles in 75 minutes.  I felt good enough to do another mile or two but stopped as I've read you shouldn't jump ahead to far too fast in a training routine as you're likely to do yourself  more harm then good.  But eight miles is  a good 3-4 miles more than a typical run so I'm thrilled.

Part of the reason for the ease of the run was different terrain. Royce, Marguarita and I drove into Greensboro this morning at 7:30 and met a friend of Royce's. (This friend is over 60 and averages 50 miles a week. He's in incredible shape.) But instead of running over traffic bridges and through scenic K-mart parking lots as we do in Madison, today we ran a hiking trail with trees creating a canopy shelter, wooden bridges that crossed lakes and beautiful scenery to look at.  It's so much easier to run when you're focused on how pretty the world is versus "I can't breath."

My challenge now is to increase not only time but the number of days I run each week. Right now, Tuesday and Thursday are running days along with one weekend day. I probably need to start doing Saturday and Sunday (one hard run, one easy) and maybe one more day during the week. Finding time is always a challenge but even if I just hopped on the treadmill for 3-4 miles one evening, that would help.

There's a 10k in Winston next weekend I might sign up for. See what I can do about increasing my time.

I hope everyone reading this is experiencing as beautiful a day as we are here in NC. It doesn't get much better than what's outside my window today.