Today was, hands down, the best run I have ever had in my life. It was amazing for so many reasons and I will outline them here:

  • I did not have any distance or time goals. I just told myself that I was going to run as long as I felt like running. I ended up running for 5.44 miles, and 1 hour  and 20 minutes. Just the fact that I would voluntarily want to run that long, sort of blows all the neurons out of my brain.
  • I did have a mini-goal of keeping an average pace of 15 minute mile or less, accounting for any walk breaks. My final average was 14:48. Yay! My middle miles were in the 12-13 pace range (yay) and my beginning and endings were around 16. I can totally live with this.
  • Nothing hurt during this run. NOTHING. Not even my jankety old ankle. Not even my flat-as-pancake feet. Nothing.
  • It was actually relaxing. It actually felt really, really good.
  • I ran past the most beautiful scenery ever. It made my heart feel good to run around the perimeter of Cesar Chavez Park.
  • The weather was perfect. It started out cool and I was happy to have my snuggy sweatshirt on. It ended up warm and I felt nice and toasty.
  • Every single song on my iPod made me feel so happy and felt perfectly related to my run. I love running to “Don’t Fear the Reaper” (for obvious reasons?) and “Friend of the Devil” (…set out running but I take my time, the friend of the devil is a friend of mine…) But the song that always gets me is the Fray’s “You Found Me.” This song is my perfect running tempo and the lyrics just choke me up. Who found who? I found myself. Why’d I have to wait this long? I do not know.
Lost and insecure
You found me, you found me
Lying on the floor
Surrounded, surrounded
Why’d you have to wait?
Where were you, where were you?
Just a little late
You found me, you found me
  • Next: at the EXACT same moment I needed to pee, what appeared right in front of me? A Port-O-Potty. See? A perfect run.

I was really almost in tears when I finished this run. I looked at my Runkeeper. I just kept staring at it. And couldn’t stop saying to myself, you just ran 5.5 miles, ALONE, not as part of a race event, not with any friends, not for any reason except that you wanted to. And it felt good.

LOOK AT YOU, you 51 year old diabetic person! LOOK AT YOU!!!!!
Happy.