The joy of a good run

I think I slept for roughly 4 hours last night and was up before sunrise to get the train to work after spending the night in a field as part of my 'Year of Microadventures' challenge. Still, I had no intention of that stopping me from getting out at lunchtime for a run only to get to work and find that I had no shorts in my locker, damn! I actually felt disappointed rather than relief (to have an excuse not to run) and after mentioning it to my colleague (who just so happens to be a fanatical Ironman/cyclist/ultra-runner) I was happy to find that he had a spare pair that I could use, woop!

Today is my 4th run using the 180 formula and it was honestly the best run I think I've ever had. Frustratingly, I'd forgotten my heart rate monitor and thought that this would totally screw up my experiment to keep my heart rate below 144bpm - instead it was the total opposite. I ran the same 8.1km route as Tuesday along the Thames and straight away I felt like my body had settled into a similar rhythm to that of my previous runs, nice! At 2km in I checked my watch to see that I was pretty much bang on track at 14mins as I usually run about 2km in 15 minutes with the heart rate monitor. This pace continued for the rest of my run and by 6km in when my left knee stopped hurting I felt truly fantastic and didn't want to stop!

The confidence I've gained through todays run without the heart rate monitor has really given me a boost. I've never ran regularly enough to learn how to pace myself when running and I think today I nailed it, coming in only 5 minutes ahead of my Tuesday run. I've also never experienced that feeling of not wanting to stop - to just keep going forever and see when I actually run out of steam, maybe this is what they call catching the 'running bug'???

Statitics: 8.1km in 58:15