Easy 8

Today was supposed to be a day of doing nothing. We ate breakfast, thought about how much fun Disney is, started putting up the curtains, and then I stepped on the scale. Wow! I threw on the shoes, found something to cover my ears, fired up the Garmin and headed west. Calories needed to be burned. Travel is not conducive to healthy eating, at least for me it isn’t. I was a little disappointed in myself, even though I knew the Holidays were going to be a time of maintenance and not improvement. Big dreams are easy in the morning. I was determined to run long today, and if I wound up dead on the side of the road, so be it. The weather was perfect for running. It was about 48 degrees, there was a little bit of cloud cover, and not much wind. I had planned on running five miles, but I hadn’t run in good conditions like today’s for so long that I underestimated how easy five miles would be. I cruised past the turn around point for my five mile run and did a bridge loop. I ran down to the Jacksonville Landing, over the Main Street Bridge and back across the Acosta Bridge. It is so much easier to run when my body isn’t wasting all its energy trying to vent heat. I didn’t sweat nearly as much as I normally do so my blood didn’t get thick. This is the first run in recent memory that felt great the whole run. As I was running back around the Riverside Arts Market and under the Fuller Warren Bridge some running expo people started cheering me on. The running community is funny. I had kept my heart rate under control until I finished my lap around Memorial Park, which is 1.6 miles from my front door along the route that I take. I decided the home stretch started as I left the park and crossed Margaret Street. I picked up the pace and was able to finish strong. Today might have been the easiest 8 mile run I’ve ever done.