The Promise of a Good Run

Happy Sunday! After posting to my local tri group that, well, here's what I said...

"Anyone running this Sunday morning? I'm having a hard time motivating myself to get out there and meeting up would be just the oomph I need. I'm hoping to do 10 miles or so. No need for us to run together, just meet up and get moving, maybe coffee after if we have time."

So I put it out there and within 30 minutes I had plans (thanks Dierdra!). The Tiburon by the Bay half-marathon group was hosting a course preview, with 6 or 8 mile run options and post-run yoga. No 10 mile option but I'm not complaining. They'd also be offering snacks after. What's not to love? So I signed up for that and got my lazy butt to bed early.

When the alarm went off at 6am this whole meetup run thing no longer seemed like such a great idea. But after some hemming and hawing I got up and moving. It was chilly outside, in the mid 50's. I know you mid-westerners (not to mention easterners) are laughing right now but for this born and bred California girl, that's cold!

A good-sized crowd shows up and we get briefed on the planned route. Though I've run in this area quite a lot, I've never run this route so I'm a bit concerned about getting lost. Hopefully I can keep up enough to have someone to follow. Before too long we're on our way. And it turned out all the rest this past week made running fairly easy. Oh and the weather! Once the sun started shining all was right with the world. Perfect running weather.

While running I overheard a couple women talking about the Nike half and wriggled my way into that conversation. Turns out they've done it multiple times and had tons of tips! We also talked about parenting little ones and running, and how the two compliment each other so perfectly.

I got to the 6-mile turnaround and briefly considered going to 8 - after all, I started with a plan to do 10 - but then figured, ah what the heck, the race is next weekend, 2 extra miles at this point won't make or break me. So I turned around and happily finished strong, running my last mile in around 9:05 minutes. I can't be sure of my overall pace because my Garmin died just after we stopped and I can't find the cord to upload/charge it. I'm pretty sure my overall pace was around 9:35, which made me happy.

After the run I partook (is that the past tense of partake?) in some of the treats and watched some of the women do yoga for a few minutes.

Post run milling. Check out that weather!

Urban Remedy juices - yum!

Urban Remedy snacks. This stuff was tasty!!

I guess people use the juices to do cleanses, which (so far) isn't my thing. But they're so tasty I'd enjoy them as a snack. Anyway, my Nike Sunday running peeps were meeting for breakfast so I skipped the yoga and got on that bandwagon.

We met up at the same cafe from last time but this time I went less healthy, with pancakes, an egg and bacon. And I had some great conversation about p90x, the joys of fitness and how finding what you love is not always the best advice, at least not for the new exerciser.

Mmm, pancakes!

Well, there you have it. I'm back home and showered, just waiting for Miguel to drop off the kids. They went with him to soccer this morning while I ran around Tiburon and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast. Life remains in flux over here but I'm happy to have burned off some stress this morning. I recently described food as my salvation but it's not. Running, exercise, moving my body - that's my salvation.