Spring...My Favorite Time of Year

How do you bottle a feeling?? If I could bottle the way I’m feeling right now, I could make a mint…much better than any of the mood altering drugs out there…Runner’s High…And spring…mixed together…is there a more heady combination???

I love spring. It’s my favorite time of year. A time of rebirth…I don’t think of January first so much as the beginning of the year, well, I do, but not in the same way as I look at spring. Spring is a new beginning in a much different way. I see new possibilities, everything seems different. While some complain of the rain, I embrace it, it brings the flowers after all…and the scents in the air, wow, tonight was the sweetest of all perfumes…everything smelled so wonderful. I’m truly blessed to not be plagued by spring allergies because nothing smells better to me than that mix of flowering trees in early spring when you’re out on a run.

Today my workout was speed. I am on another new cycle…last week was rest, so this week my body is ready, I moved up to intervals of 1 mile. The goal was 4 or 5 x 1 mile repeats with ½ mile recovery at a 7:30-7:45 pace on the miles. I am a freak too. I wore my GPS and set it for intervals, but I also wanted a running time, so I wore my Timex too…I ran out to where I knew a mile was, then turned and hit a hard pace toward the path I was going to run around for my repeats…it was slightly downhill for the first part, but mostly flat around the half mile path I used for the run…first mile was 6:53…oops…a bit faster than intended, but there was a downhill. Recovery was about 9 minute pace. Second interval was around 7:05 or so, I can’t quite remember the pace and can’t seem to recover it on my GPS, but it was probably about that. Third one I hit again on a downhill as I went off the path for a bit…this one was around 6:57 or so…Fourth right around or just under 7 and last one was 6:51, again completely on the flat…OK…guess I was underestimating my time…I was feeling so good too that instead of the 1 mile cool down I went 2 miles to finish out a 10 mile for the day…Overall pace was around 8:20 I think for the whole run…not bad. And I feel really good…