Finding my kick

53:25.  It's not an official 10K PR.  I didn't sign up for a race, nor did I start the run aiming to race it.  It just sort of evolved into that.  Let me explain.

Neither I nor my running partner felt like waking up at 5 am to run in the freezing cold.  We decided to swap kids and run a little later in the day.  Perfect!

Mile 1, 9:20-
I dropped my babies off at Em's house and started my run.  I did my first mile at an easy 9:20.  I had decided to run the middle miles at a comfortably hard pace, so I moved my arms a little faster and my legs seemed to follow.

Miles 2-5 8:32, 8:22, 8:29, 8:42 (I had to stop at a light)--
 My legs just started to go.  It felt hard.  Not exactly a race pace, but definitely not easy either.  I told myself I could ease up at mile 5 and bring it home easy.  But then I changed my mind.  I haven't ever raced a 10k.  My normal runs settle somewhere around 5 or 8 miles, or are super long.  My watch chooses my records from those miles.  So they aren't exactly my fastest miles, and my previous garmin PR was around 59 minutes--taken from an 8 miler I believe.  If I kept moving, I could really see what I could do.

Mile 6 and .2, 8:19, and 1:40 (7:35 pace)--
I'll admit, mile 6 was not easy.  I wanted to slow down, but I also knew I only had eight more minutes of running to go.  I could do it.  I knew I could.  I kept my arms going and brought it home.  I wanted to jump for joy when I saw the 53:25 final time.

I can go faster.  I can see lots of room for improvement.  I always have a hard time two miles before the finish of a run.  I mean, I'm not almost there.  I'm just closer to the finish than I was in the beginning.  I need to change my thought process when I get to that point.  It will serve me well in the long run.  Running is a mental game as much as it is physical, if not more so.

Overall, I'm happy to get my running legs back.  Since Christmas my times have been steadily falling and I am so happy about that.  I don't want to push it to hard during these taper weeks, but after this marathon I can't wait to hit the track and start some hill work and see what these legs and lungs really can do.