Fun on a run

The title alone begs a blog entry told in Dr. Suess-style verse, but I'm tired and will thus spare you.  I'm again in awe of how parents of babies keep it together in the midst of months of sleep deprivation, because I'm dragging after just one week.  J. started running a fever last Wednesday night and has kept one since then, and he's been in our room multiple times in the middle of the night, every night.  Somehow Jeff, a very hands-on dad in every other way, is physically unable to hear his child come into our room, so I've been up every night doing the cuddling and medicine dosing and back-to-bedding.  (And yeah, I probably wouldn't have it any other way). 

We were at the doctor's office on Tuesday, and it is officially the flu, though the kindest, gentlest flu one could hope to catch.  He's run a fever, had a runny nose and cough, and absolutely no appetite, but he's overall felt pretty good.  He's very lucky.  So far today he hasn't had any kind of fever, so keep your fingers crossed he can go back to school tomorrow.

Somehow, even though I've been home with him every day except for Tuesday, I haven't managed to find the time to run.  Luckily, this is a cut-back week.  I took Monday off after my 16.8 mile Sunday.  Tuesday I had to get N. and J. to the doctor before going into work for the second half of my day plus a full evening of parent-teacher conferences (in the good news portion of the appointments, N's knee isn't injured...yea!).  On Wednesday, I couldn't put it off any more, so after eating dinner and getting J showered, I headed out.

My training plan calls for 6 easy miles Monday, 6 easy miles on Wednesday, and 5 easy miles on Saturday.  Well, Monday didn't happen, and Saturday will be 9.3 not so easy miles of trail race at the Castlewood Cup.  I decided that I'd go out for 4ish easy miles last night and then maybe another 4 tonight. 

It was in the low 40's when I headed out, which would've felt like a heat wave if it wasn't for the 70 degree weather on Sunday.  As it was, it was bearable in a short sleeve tech tee over a long-sleeved one.  I did two loops of the hillier route, then two miles of a flatter route, and finished with 1.1 mile of the hilly one.

Splits:
Mile 1: 11:24
Mile 2: 11:14
Mile 3: 10:43
Mile 4: 10:59
Mile 5.1: 12:31

Nothing too exciting, except...it felt good!  I've gotten to where I like running with people, on trails...still not so much otherwise.  This run was different, though.  For one, my "easy" pace actually felt easy.  Also, for the first 3.75 miles or so I didn't really think about how much further, how much longer...I just zoned out and ran.  Pretty cool.  And very, very rare.