5 mile Tuesday

While I did not sleep incredibly well, I was able to will myself up at 5:40. On the road by 6:10. I am really quite proud of myself for not sleeping in. I think the cat might have realized she was pushing her luck last night. I yelled at her around 1:30 and she settled down until I got up. Maybe this is a sign of good things to come.

As mentioned yesterday, the pain in my left shin/calf/possible IT was foremost on my mind. I have noticed that when it starts to feel tense I tend to change my stride a little bit, and that makes it worse. So I decided to try a mantra whenever I could feel it. I just kept saying "Stay Loose" and it helped me stay relaxed and the pain was really very minimal throughout the whole run. I did some stretching again against the wall and in the shower. I am optimistic that this will help me get this figured out.

It was actually completely dark when I left the apartment. By the time I made it to my starting corner, you could see the tiniest sliver of light....and slightly above the horizon...the outline of the 1/8 of the moon. It actually looked like the sunrise was lighting the moon...it was really something. My breath in the crisp morning air mixed with the lightbeam from my headlamp again captured my eyesight at several points until the sun came up. Kind of an at peace run for the first few miles.

The run was good...5 miles isn't a long distance....but when you are trying to get back into full marathon shape it still takes some effort. I really worked on keeping a slow pace as to not aggravate the leg until the last 2 miles. I opened up a little bit and it felt really good. My time ended up 48 minutes and 7 seconds for 5 miles. I bit faster than my goal, but definitely comfortable. Thanks for reading!