8 Miles; 98 minutes 14 seconds

So I went over my planned time limit by 2 minutes and 14 seconds. Here's the thing. At 96 minutes I was 2 tenths shy of 8 miles. What would YOU do? Yeah, I thought so. :)

All in all considering that this is my first run in 17 days it went pretty well. As 4 pm approached today I did have some thoughts of "OH boy I gotta do this" but I never thought not to do it. I went to the Chester Valley Trail which is only a mile or so from where I work. I could have reached out to the group for company but decided it was better to go it alone tonight since I had no idea how it would go.

I tried hard to conentrate on going slow in the beginnning. Keeping my breathing even. It felt really good to be running again and that made it difficult to stay even. In hindsight this would have been a good run for the heart rate monitor. I could have deduced an average easy run HR from my earlier runs and forced myself to slow down or walk when I went over that. I know I went too hard in the early miles as I always tend to do. I was good through the first three miles and then I had to take more frequent walk breaks.

Two mistakes right off where being over dressed and miscalculated hydration. The over dressed part was a tough call. It snowed yesterday and there was ice on my car this morning. And as it was on the second half of the run I was glad to have the extra layers because I felt chilled but that could have been due to the hydration issue.

I hate carrying anything in my hands while running. So I left my water bottle in the car and figured I'd go out 2 miles and back 2 miles and then take some water and do it again. I was feeling good on the way out and decided to see if I could get to three before turning around. Typically I can do 5 or 6 -especially in cooler weather- without needing water. I forgot to figure in this cold which is dehydrating me faster than usual. Brain cramp on my part.

I finished it though and I'm glad of that. I'm not sure about doing it again and then half again on Saturday so I just won't think about it that way. Time to go stretch, hydrate some more and rest.