Day 10 - Spring in November

Today's schedule run: 5 miles

Today's completed run: 5.08 miles
Pace: 9:04

Today's running entertainment: Timothy Keller sermon, "Real Friendship and the Pleading Priest" -- I'm sure I was "mm-hmm"ing, and I know I was chuckling at some points, but I bet the passersby just thought I was a happy, content morning runner.

Despite not being able to fall asleep until 12:15 am, I woke at 5:50 am to hit the road. My dad and I are traveling to NC tonight as soon as I leave P.S. 124, so I wouldn't have had time to get a run in otherwise. I thought it was going to be raining, so I headed off to the gym, which is about an 8-minute walk from my house. There, I was informed the power was out across campus. Couldn't they get a back-up generator for my treadmill? Apparently not.

Somewhat dejected, I headed back home. About 4 minutes into my walk back, the obvious dawned on me: it's not raining, and it's pretty warm out. I dropped off my gym stuff and headed back out the door in shorts and a t-shirt (in late November!!) to run outside. The weather -- 60 degrees and humid -- had me confused as to whether or not Thanksgiving is actually tomorrow, but I was grateful nonetheless. I cruised at a pretty steady pace through Downtown, past and around Little Italy, around the Harbor and then back through Downtown. Traffic was pretty light for most of the run, as rush hour hadn't quite started yet.

About 35 minutes in, an e-mail popped up on my phone from the campus alert system, alerting me that the power was out across campus. Thanks a lot, guys.

All in all, a great morning run. I often struggle to run in the morning, but I seem to be getting better here. It's a great way to jump-start my day, and it's really nice to feel so accomplished before the day has even started.

Tomorrow I will write from the mountains of North Carolina, where sidewalks are a commodity and I use the altitude as an excuse to run pitifully, even though my dad tells me the addition of 3,000-ish feet shouldn't make a difference...