It was Good Day

Today was a very good day. The workday seemed long, but I really didn't do anything all day, so it wasn't too bad. The weather today was beautiful. It didn't rain as much as I would have liked, though, but it has been dry enough that any rain was a good thing. I think the sun is way over-rated, so the cloud cover was just what I needed to get hyped for tonight's 6 mile run. I would be perfectly happy living in London or Seattle because I live for days like this, where we go all day without even catching a glimpse of the sun. I really love it when it pours down rain all afternoon, but since I knew that we were going to be on the road for over an hour, I was hoping we might catch a window where it didn't do much more than drizzle on us.

My buddy Daylen from work has recently started running again after having some knee problems in the past, so invited him to come and run with us for a little bit, but it turned out he was game for running the whole 6. When I first got to Lake Hefner, I made sure to spend a little extra time stretching and warming up due to the cool temp. It seems like Aaron and I have spent most of our time running in 90+ degree weather this summer, so running in the 50's was a little out of the ordinary.

We were running across the dam at Lake Hefner where I ran my 4 miler last Thursday, so I had a pretty good idea of what to expect, and what I expected was 6 windy, ass whipping miles of pain. I knew Daylen was in great shape, and since Aaron has been wearing out the cross training and now weighs 30 pounds less than me, I was a little concerned about my ability to keep up. The first half mile or so was into the wind, and then for the next 2 miles or so there seemed to be a pretty good cross-wind. The run itself is really flat, and most of it is pretty straight, so you get a pretty good view of what is coming up. The footing is really smooth, so other than watching out for the day-glo orange condoms scattered on the sidewalk (which seemed to only be in Aaron's path), you can spend most of your time looking ahead instead of looking at the ground to avoid bumps and holes.

The run itself was pretty uneventful. We were running sub-12's from the first mile, which I was a little worried about, but we took one minute walk breaks after every 9 minutes of running, and that really seemed to keep my legs fresh. I spent most of the run about 2 or 3 steps behind everyone else, but I did a pretty good job of keeping up (except for when Aaron looks at his watch, which apparently tells him to take off on a dead sprint every time he looks at it). We did a 3 mile out, 3 mile back course and I spent most of the return trip focusing on the pier which was right about the 5 mile mark. There was a stretch of what seemed like 3 hours where the pier actually seemed to be moving farther away, but once we got to that point we skipped our last walk break and ran it in. We had decided not to kick at the end, but I could tell that every time Daylen got anywhere near Aaron, Aaron took it as a personal affront to his manhood and sped up. So I think we ended up running at about a 9 minute pace for the last half mile or so.

I completed the run, and I felt absolutely no pain for the whole run. It may be the best run I've ever had. 6 miles, with no pain, and no straining. I felt like I could have kept running all day. After running, my heart rate seemed like it was back to normal within minutes. My time ended up being 1:06:44, which was a 10:57 pace. Pretty incredible considering the last time I ran 6 miles it took 1:27:00. Knocking over 20 minutes off of my time seems pretty unbelievable. I had started doubting whether or not I could finish not only the half marathon, but also the 10K coming up, but after tonight's run, I have no worries. Like I said: It was a good day.