Weekends are for Running

I love weekends.  For my husband and me they are all about running.  We love to take the extra time and go some place we don't have time to go normally and run to soak up the people and environment.  Today we headed to Roswell and Riverside Park.  It runs along the Chattahoochee River and it is packed with other runners, walkers, cyclists, and families enjoying the day.  If we get out to a destination we always try and do a longer run.  So today was an easy 6 miles.

I am working on pacing myself and understanding my pace better.  Running with my husband is a help.  He is like the Rainman of running pace.  He loves to play a game with my Ismooth Run by guessing our pace for the last 1/2 mile.  He is right an annoying number of times.  I called him the Pace Master and now he is using that as his nickname.  Yeah, that won't get annoying as I try to get better at recognizing my pace.  My goal for summer is to keep my long runs between the 6-8 mile range, since I have asthma and running in the heat is more of a challenge.  Around September I will kick them up to the 10-13 mile range in preparation for my November 1/2.  Also 6-8 is the long run sweet spot for my husband who does not enjoy running as long as I do.   To be fair he is much faster and he is the Pace Master so he has that up on me.

I have noticed that even though running in the heat is more challenging, I can tell I have become a much stronger runner.  Last summer running over 3 miles in the heat felt like torture and was certainly much slower.  Today it felt good.  I felt fine when we finished the run.  Overall I have noticed that committing to running 6 days a week and these couple of running streaks I have done have really made me a stronger runner.  I got faster naturally where my comfortable pace just naturally dropped.  On the ride home my husband and I were talking about other places to run.  He mentioned a local park we used to go to.  It has a 1/2 mile trail, so it is boring to go around so many times.  We laughed that years ago we used to walk two or three laps around the trail and be exhausted.  Sometimes looking back at where you were it is really clear how far you have come.

I hope you got in some  healthy fun weekend time.  Of course it is not all about running.  After we came  back it was tacos and sangria at The Corner Taqueria and a visit to this new Stout Brother's Brewery in our neighborhood where my husband finally found his Craft Beer ice cream.  I tried it, but it is not for me.