What goes up must come down

This morning was my first pre-work run in over a week. Even though I got up early on vacation there wasn't the same kind of pressure to get it done within a fixed time frame in order to be to work on time. I had set my alarm but Daisy threw up this morning about 45 minutes before it went off so by the time I was reassured that she was okay I was completely awake. I think I'm going to try to do that from now on, get up earlier than I plan to run. I think part of the reason I hate running early so much is because I wake up and I don't give myself any time to adjust from sleep to doing an intense cardiovascular activity. I actually felt ready by the time I started this morning.

Today I decided to brave the outdoors. I ran outside last week in the heat on vacation, I figured it was time to do it at home. The only thing is that the loop near my house is just horrendous with hills. I mean, ridiculously hard. There's a running program online, I'll have to remember which one it is, where you can see the percent incline or decline and it's graded from green (flat) to red (super crazy incline). Before I got back into running I mapped out the route near my house and I saw a lot of red. That's probably what discouraged me from getting started for another couple of months. For as well as my running is going this route will never not be hard. Frankly, I dread it. I don't get rattled by my 10-milers on the weekend but this one really gets to me. However, if it's that hard and causes me that much agony then it's got to be a good thing to do, right? That's what I keep telling myself, anyway.

So I did it. I even tacked on a little mileage in the middle because I wanted to be over 4 miles and the loop, as it is, is only 3.2 miles or something like that. Not that it doesn't feel like twice that because of the hills but I'm trying to keep my mileage up. Maybe it's because it wasn't a million degrees this morning but it ended up being my best outside run yet -- hills and all. My pace was 10:57 which is definitely the best I've ever done on that route. I tried to get an elevation graph but there's something funky about the last hill that doesn't register. It shows how insanely steep it is in the beginning when I start but it doesn't bring me back to the same elevation when I finish. What goes down must come up, right? I do have my splits and, again, the change in feet is definitely wrong but the pace is correct.

I swear, getting in a run like this before work gives me more of a sense of accomplishment than my long runs at this point. I feel such relief when I follow through and do it before work. Now I just have to do tomorrow... Normally I'd do it on Thursday but I'm getting a keratin treatment tomorrow night and I won't be able to pull my hair back or wash it for 2 days. I'm dedicated to my training but you know, it's a hair thing. My battles with my hair are epic, this is almost a neccesity. ;)