And from out of left field.....

I went running today in an attempt to return to my training schedule. The feelings of apathy as previously mentioned had been finding their way into my training and I just could muster up enough ambition to do any more than a run 3x a week. I even managed to completely skip out on a long run day!  Not gonna cut the mustard because these runs have been really hard. I can definitely tell a difference between the weeks I was doing the program stuff and the weeks I haven't.

But today was different. I decided to hit Staring Lake Trail. I usually avoid this one for a few reasons:

1. It's long. 2.3 miles long. 
2. It's very solitary and despite EP being a fabulously safe and wonderful suburb, stuff happens. I always try to stick to neighborhood roads when running alone and almost never take the exact same path. One can never be too careful
3. This is the trail, that even after completing a 5K, I had never been able to make it all the way around. There's many small hills and it had built up to be so much more a mountain that ever in my mind. 

So with all that in mind, I set my sights on completing the trail loop once. It was definitely hard but I pulled through. The benefit of this trail is that is was pretty shady which proved to be very handy on a sunny warm day like today. I managed to finish it and by sheer obstinacy, kept going. I turned my focus from distance to time. Reminding myself: You've run 30 minutes already, you can do 20 more. And then I saw my car again. 4.6 miles done! You read that right. The furthest distance I've ever ran. I even managed to do it in 56 minutes, 39 seconds! Under 60 minutes! Whoa!

 

In good news land, I may have managed to lose 3 lbs. Doesn't seem like much. But a cliche involving the length of the Rome project (that whole not being built in a day thing) come to mind. Its easy to understand why this is a hard process. Its so easy to get discouraged by lack of progress and I think I have been feeling it because despite the compliments received on a shrinking physique, not seeing the results in the form of lbs bugs me. But now about 3 lbs is in fact gone. AND I think my butt might be getting a little perkier... I could be wrong though....