Celtic Solstice training done

I ran five miles today, just for the heck of it.

Since I had so much luck with my four mile treadmill run on Monday, I laid out a five mile outdoor route (pretty much put together my two regular routes and cut out the section at the end of one/beginning of the other where they overlap), then decided there was no point in building up slowly--five miles isn't really that much more than the 3.5 I usually do, and since I knew I could do that 3.5 after swimming and biking for nearly two hours, I was pretty sure that adding another mile and a half to my run would be not that big of a deal.

I was right. Of course I told myself that I would keep the pace slow and would stop and walk when needed, and I only "had" to run the first four miles since that was my goal for this week, but I felt fine the whole way, so I just kept going. The second half of the route has a lot of traffic lights, so you get a lot of breaks while you wait for the light to change, and that certainly made the run easier. And the Columbia Bike Guy blew me a kiss as he passed while I was on one of the long hills, which made me smile.

I finished the run in 50:33 and then wished I had sped up just a tiny bit to break 50 minutes, so that'll be my offiicial goal for the race, now that I know I can go the distance with no problems (barring injury or heavy snow or icy ground or air that's so cold it hurts to breathe).

On another note, registration for Iron Girl opened on Monday, and closed six hours later! I'm glad I hadn't planned to register--I didn't even think about the registration opening until the mid-afternoon, by which time it was probably already full! Crazy.