A Peaceful Run

The weather turned out to be beautiful today!  It was the perfect day for my second tempo run. 

After dropping Thing 1 off at preschool, Thing 2, Thing 3 and I headed out for a four mile tempo run.  Two miles at half marathon pace (pushing the stroller.)  I was excited about my run, the sun was out and even though it was in the upper 30s I thought it felt great.  Thing 2 and Thing 3 were easy to get into the stroller, for once.  It was so nice. 

My first mile was nice.  Thing 3 went right to sleep.  Thing 2 happily ate his candy.  I felt awesome.  So awesome in fact that I really should have slowed way down.  I had started way too fast again.  This tends to be a problem of mine.  I ran my first mile at almost the same pace I wanted to run my middle two miles.  I am really going to have to work on that.

The second mile, I picked up my pace and it went smoothly.  Both kids were still happy, I hadn't had to stop to adjust anything for them.  It was really quiet out on the trails.  You could hear the birds singing and the squirrels playing in the trees.  It was the most peaceful run I had had in a long time.  The only really loud thing was my breathing.

I hit the turn around point, took off my long sleeve shirt, turned the stroller and headed back to the house.  Thing 2 started to get a little antsy so I gave him my phone to play with, which allowed me to finish mile 3.  At this point I was pretty tired and glad to slow down.

Thing 3 wasn't the biggest fan of me slowing down, because as soon as I started my cool down mile, he woke up and was fussy.  Luckily, I have learned that giving him my smelly shirt will calm him down enough so I can finish.  I guess he likes to go fast.

I was glad my run was over.  I was tired.  But I knew that I had really pushed myself.  Maybe that marathon in May will actually happen!  And the best part was how happy and relaxed I have felt the rest of the day.  Now if only I could get my boys to be the same way.

Going to read some books with my monster boys!