Nine miles

So my mileage isn't quite what Sarah's was this week -- I ran about 6 at the gym total this weekend, and nine today, plus one time on the elliptical for a total of 20. But mine was all on foot so I don't feel so bad. ;-)

Actually, my run today was AWESOME. It was great. The best I've had in forever. First of all, my previous maximum distance to date was 8 miles, and this was 9. It wasn't on the trail, unfortunately; the kids were home and unsupervised so I had to stay close to the house (which also turned out to be convenient for water breaks and one emergency potty stop). Two blocks in three different directions nets me a loop of just over a mile, so I just ran the loop eight and a half times. There's only one hill in that, and it's not too bad, though it's enough to count for something. But it's not a challenging course. I kept moving, though, so it counts!

I also found myself running much more smoothly than usual a few times. Running turns out to be a lot like singing. Or childbirth. The less effort you put into it the better it goes -- though, of course, I think you have to have some minimum level of fitness (in all three cases, I believe) for that to be possible. But on these nice, long, flat stretches, I found myself telling myself to relax into my stride, and I found that I could lengthen it and cover more ground with less effort.

I don't have much soreness after this run, either -- I could feel my leg complaining (more on the shorter stride than the relaxed running!) but it didn't get progressively worse.

My time in the end was 1:32:47. I was aiming for 1:40, so this was a LOT faster than I expected. Yippee!