Active Day

Today was quite an active day. My sister was still in town, so we took the kids to the Botannical Gardens out in Ann Arbor. Great walk - maybe 2 - 3 miles overall. When we got home, we took the kids to the park down the street. We walked around the park and the wetland area. Maybe another mile or so there.

All that walking got me in the mood for running. My sister left to go home, and I put my running shoes on. I went for my normal 4+ mile route. The first mile was a warmup, and then I tried to time my second mile. This was not going well, so I decided to just walk it out for a few minutes and just time my third mile. This third mile ended up being the best run of my life so far. I timed it at 8 minutes 15 seconds. I've only run outside a handful of times, but this was by far the fastest.

I tried a time run 2 weeks ago, but I was very disappointed that I had only shaved off 1 second from the week before (9 min 30 sec the 1st week). What was the difference this time? Here are some key things that I came up with:

• It was the same route as both timed runs before, but the second run was in the opposite direction. Duh. There is probably some element of slope there. This is probably the most determining factor.
• I was past the 20 minute mark. I think I become much more efficient at this point of an aerobic workout.
• I kept my head down. I think this helped with my breathing.
• I was spitting a lot. Not to be gross or anything, but I have a lot of nasal drainage right now, and I was getting rid of it as needed. This also helped with my breathing.
• I changed up my music. Fatboy Slim is great for endurance, but My Chemical Romance's Famous Last Words is very inspiring to me and I'm pretty sure it has a much higher bpm.
• Longer strides.
• I almost killed myself on the last tenth. My heart rate monitor was screaming at me. When I got done it was at 194. I so felt like puking.
• It was cooler outside today, and I went late in the day.

So I don't know how many of these things actually made a difference, but I feel great about my run nonetheless. We'll see if I can repeat it next week :)

In other news..

We went to a mexican restaurant for dinner tonight (between the gardens and the park). I overdid it on the chips, but I ordered 3 tacos and rice. I ate one taco and about half the rice, and put the rest in a box. I felt good, but not stuffed. I knew I would feel better about myself later if I exercised some self-discipline. Wasn't the healthiest I could have done, but it was better and my walk and run helped to offset it.