Freethinker ~ Freerunner

My tradition of running solo runs on holidays continues.  This is now the second year in a row I have run 10 miles on Christmas day.  Last year on Christmas day I ran 10 miles at an 8:07 pace.  Today I rand 10 miles at an 8:00 minute pace.  Last year the temperature was 32 degrees.  This year the temperature was 28 degrees.  Last year I started my run at 6:34 AM.  This morning I started my run at 4:36 AM.  If I was into numerology and other such pseudoscience junk I might try to ascribe some meaning those two start times.  But since I am a rationalist I will leave it to the random noise that it is.   

Why such and early start time this year?  Although Ty was here last year, he was only three months old and still sleeping quite a bit.  Now that he is older he is an early riser like his daddy, and he is walking.  So although this was not his first Christmas, it was the first one in which he could really enjoy the experience.  I wanted to make sure to get my morning run in without missing his moment walking into the room and seeing the presents under the tree for the first time.  

Alisha and I calculated that based on his normal sleep patterns there was 90% chance he would not wake at least until 6:00.  I decided that in order to get my 10 miles in and still be back by then I would need to leave by 4:40 at the latest.  This most likely would have been successful but he went to bed not feeling well.  He has had a reaction to his latest round of vaccinations just having been administered a few days ago, and thus ended up waking at 5:30.  We thought that the busy day would counter act any early waking, but it did not.  Fortunately he did not make too much of a fuss until right about the time I walked in the door.  

I think this makes my record earliest time ever starting a run.  As I type this it is 9:00 PM.  I am sipping a glass of wine looking forward to bed after a long day at the in-laws.

Merry Christmas!

This morning the temperature was 31, but the wind chill was 24.  Fortunately most of my run was shielded from the wind.  I averaged a 7:47 mile pace.  I am now only 7.59 miles away from hitting the 1,000 mile mark on the year.  Since I'm going to run 5 tomorrow and 5 on Friday I will hit it during the my last run of the year.  

I ran an easy 5 this morning.  It was pretty cold at 26 degrees.  This Friday will be my last run this year.  I think I might take a week off after that. 

I signed up for the Post Oak Lodge Troad run in February.  I missed it last year, so I'm looking forward to running it again.  

This morning I woke up and put my cold weather clothes on that I had laid out the night before as usual.  Then I checked the temperature.  It was 48 degrees with no wind.  The forecast at 10 PM last night said it would be 42 degrees this morning.  I had planned an easy run and it has been in the 20's all week, so when I woke up and it was 48 I realized I was going to cook unless I switched to something lighter.  It never ceases to amaze me how dramatically unpredictable our weather is around here.

This was my last run of 2011.  I'm now closing out the year with 1002.44 miles.  This is below my benchmark year in 2010 of 1,387.72.  Perhaps I will top 2010 in 2012.