Poor Planning

This morning I woke up and for the life of me, could not make myself drive to school to do my indoor run.  Perhaps it is because it is the first official day of my spring break.  I changed into warmer clothes and decided to tackle to outdoor run again today.  I wasn't prepared for this, and today I was supposed to run the distance of a 5K (3.1 miles).  I knew how many laps that was at school, but I had no idea what the distance was in my neighborhood.  I should have mapped it out in advance or even before I began my run this morning, but I didn't.  I hit the road with two shirts on, two pairs of pants, my iPod, something to cover my ears, and my stopwatch. 

For some reason, I was very tired today, and I knew my pace was down.  In fact, I am pretty sure today's run was my worst one yet, but I don't care.  I still did it.  Despite the fact that I was so tired I wanted to stay in bed, despite the fact that I am not feeling 100%, I dug my heels in and ran anyway.  My neighborhood is 1 of 3 that are connected to one another so I ran around two of those three neighborhoods.  I knew if I incorporated the third neighborhood, it would have gone over the 5K distance I was aiming for. 

I am going to be honest.  This run was hard for me.  There was a huge mental battle the entire time.  I was trying to convince myself that I only needed to run around my neighborhood and call it a day.  To "punish" myself or prove myself wrong (not sure which one) I made myself go the second neighborhood, and I am glad I did.  It just means that I didn't quit and that I didn't talk myself into cheating myself because that is the only person who would cheated in this process - me. 

When I got home I was drenched in sweat.  It might have been a little warmer than I originally thought outside and I had too many layers on, but that is okay.  I drank a bunch of water and then jumped into my car to map out the distance I had run today.  I ran 2.7 miles.  This is not the 3.1 miles I was aiming for, but it is better than what I was trying to talk myself into doing today.  This just shows me that I need to plan better so that I cover the distance I am aiming for in a run. 

This was my worst time, but at least I did it!  Here are my official results:

 

I really want to run outside now and prepare for being outdoors.  I think I will get better at running outdoors once I do it more often.  Indiana weather is not corporating with me, though.  If we get all this snow the meteorologists are predicting, I will not be running outside this week.  Sigh.  The silver lining is that at least I will still be running.