Day 35: National Running Day

I have learned that I need to fully charge all of my devices before I start running.  I had to return my skullcandy headphones to the company for a replacement pair (sad day), so I've been using stereo bluetooth headphones, but I didn't charge them before going.  I thought I had charged them recently, but not so, and so I ran the last mile without music.  Boo.

The route I ran was actually pretty great.  I think I will use it from now on for my longer runs.  It goes up through Kiwanis park - I run around once for a warm-up, then stretch in the shade under a tree - and then up a hill through residential areas, down past Seven Peaks water park, and then back up 9th East.  It has a good mixture of uphill, downhill, and flat, pretty evenly spaced blocks so I can tell myself to run until the end of the block, a lot to look at, and not very many cars.

Something that I may change is to not run past the guy holding the Little Caesar's sign.  He harassed me about buying a $5 pizza on my way home.  Ew.  That's about the last thing I want to think about after running 3 miles: greasy lukewarm pizza.  I guess the incentive is that he makes me want to run faster because the faster I run the less I have to hear of him...

I had to guess at my pace, and I say 2.9 miles in 38 minutes.  No clue what my pace was because the mileage is foggy at best, but I did feel like I ran it faster than usual so I could get home for institute, so take it for what it's worth.  It's a lot warmer out now, so I'm breathing much more comfortably without all that cold air in my lungs.

I'm going to set a goal to get my mile pace in the 12 minute range for the 5K.  I think I can do that by then, but I certainly can't do it now.  Sometime between now and then I also want to flat-out run a full mile without stopping.  That goal is slightly less reasonable, but it's something I've done before on a treadmill, so I know that I will be able to do it on the road as well.  It's all going to happen; I just have to be patient with it!