It was lovely out there, actually - two runs in a row with no rain! It's a miracle. Bit chilly on the hands to start with but a strong warm breeze coming back. I find it hard to keep remembering it's January, actually - when I first started running last April you could see your breath at 9pm and I went out in much heavier shirts. Couldn't see my breath at all til I'd got well out into the dark - I've swum at colder temperatures than this! Not that I'm complaining; it'd be much tougher to get out there if it was snowing.
Anyway, I was going to do the same run as Thursday - I can't really do C25K exactly because of the long hill (it's a 10% gradient and I ain't running up that when I'm just starting back!) but I was going to stick to warm-up sets/rests and try to just add a few minutes to the return leg. Yeah...I did my 1 mile warm-up walk, then 1min, 2mins, and then I was going into the dark section and thought "What the hell, I'll just run til I feel like I need a break, it's too much faff to check my watch". So I ran all the way down to the cottage on the corner (about 5mins), turned around and ran back to the light, saw it was 10mins and figured I may as well just run home at that point. So it was 27mins with no pauses, 3.5km for that section. Pretty good - I'll never be fast, don't care, point is that I'm not all that far off my previous pace and I can only improve, right? Add in a couple of lovely "ooh, this is really me running!" moments and feeling my breathing settle right down to something that matches my swimming breath, and it just felt very nice indeed.
Course, I'll be dead on my feet tomorrow but...it's swim day, yay! Not Masters, sadly, but I'm going to try to get to the pool as soon as it opens and get some maintenance km in then head home asap so OH can go for his run too. Then park for the kids if it's dry!
