I headed to bed early again since I knew I had an 8-miler on the books. I haven’t ran for days — mainly because I’ve been a bit busy with my brick workouts and this week was a bit nutty. I decided to pursue my 8-miler anyways this morning, before work. My boyfriend is flying in to town tonight so I won’t be able to stick to my training regimen while he’s here.
It took me awhile to get motivated. I kept fiddling with my hair, my Camelback, my phone. After about a half hour of procrastination, I FINALLY put my shoes on and headed out the door.
Again, I had not ran in many days — five, to be exact, so a long run right off the bat was pretty intense. I gave myself permission to start slow and to speed up whenever I felt like, without time pressures or worries. That’s why I gave myself a 4 hour head start to work. Since I didn’t have to be at work until 10, this gives me more than enough time to complete 8 miles on a new course.
This time, I finally wanted to circle Lake Union. I run by the south side so regularly now that I wanted the chance to circle it. I’ve seen it done. At Amazon there is a Strava group, and I’ve seen a few of the guys run this loop during their lunch hour.
It was quite possibly the most pretty run I’ve done in a long time (second to my 7-miler last week). I left right as the sun was rising and by the time I began crossing the bridge over to UW (the University of Washington), I was right alongside the Burke-Gilman bike/pedestrian path and was running alongside the water. Seeing the bridges and the sunrise reminded me a lot of my time in Newport, RI. It’s been 10 years!! I can’t believe how quickly time just flew by and how much I’ve learned since then.
After my run, I washed up at home and headed to work. I was in a noticeably good mood all day and felt a lot more patient with the interruptions and conflicts that came up. I felt like everyone around me was just stressing out so much for no reason. I kind of wished that they went for an 8-mile run before work. I think we’d all be a little happier — not to mention healthier.
I’m starting to feel that this whole morning exercise thing is really my natural groove. After this weekend, I’m looking forward to another great training week ahead. I think the hardest part about making the time to train is really to give myself permission to take time away from one thing to spend on another. There are many things that are important to me, but the only commodity of life is time — not money, not friends, not STUFF, just time. I choose to spend my time taking care of what was given to me so that I can continue doing good work, and hopefully raising awareness of causes along the way. But, it all starts by giving myself permission to do it in the first place.
Amara in Training 