I just can't quit you...

On September 7th I went out and had an amazing run. The world felt good and then I got to work and it all went quickly south. That day I did something I had never done before, I punched out and left. I was fed up and the fat lady sang.

After the initial "what do I do now?" panic, a window opened for me and I barrel rolled through it. The local elementary school called, they needed a classroom aide, was I available? Why yes, yes I was. But it did catch me up in a whirlwind of everything that needed to get done as a result and running was the last thing on the agenda.

Don't get me wrong, I have active. I now commute to work on my bike and I'm in constant motion at school: walking up and down stairs, monitoring the playground, etc., but I had not been running. When the Tufts 10k was looming large, I asked my class: "Who thinks I should run 6 miles on Monday?" Almost everyone raised their hands.

I was done for! So I registered for the Tufts 10k with an ambitious goal of a 13 minute mile but figuring a 15 min mile of mostly walking. I did walk the race and had a 14:50 pace for a time of just over 1:32, but I realized running was not going silently into the dark night and this morning I got up, pulled on the running tights and my compression shirt and hit the streets.

The plan this week is 3 minute intervals (3 minutes running/3 minutes walking) sandwiched between a 5 min walking warm up and a 5 min walking cool down. So today's 40 minutes looked like this: w5+(r3/w3*4)+r5/w5 = 3 miles in 40 min.

It felt good to be out again in the dark as it lightened into day. It was never a struggle and my pace felt good. If it goes this well on Thursday, I'll push the interval to a 4 min run on Sunday. I have to say, it feels good to be back. :)