Dead raccoon

There was one on the side of the road where I ran today. Ick.

Today was a much better run than the other two this week. It was a long run day, and I wasn't really looking forward to it all that much. I waited until 4:30 to even start the darn thing.

But right now I am very glad I did it. It felt really good and this run actually did lift my spirits a bit.

There is this loop I like to run. It is approximately 2.65 miles. I figured today I would run it twice and that would be good. I started out nice and slow. It took about 2 1/2 miles for me to start feeling really good. The pep finally came back into my step the second half of the run. Everything just seemed to flow and I felt better and better the farther I ran.

In all, I ran 5.25 miles. That is the farthest I have run yet! Not much farther to go for the 10K distance!

I actually finished the first five miles faster than the five miles I did last month. Today I covered five miles in 1 hour, 45 seconds. The last time I did it on Feb. 24, it took me 1 hour, two minutes and 59 seconds. So I shaved off more than two minutes this time around. Yeah!

Today's stats:
Distance: 5.25 miles
Time: 1:03:39
Pace: 12:07 minute/mile

Splits:
Mile 1: 12:06
Mile 2: 12:36
Mile 3: 12:14
Mile 4: 11:50
Mile 5: 11:57
.25 mile: 2:54 (11:42 pace)