Running for the Fun of It!

The hardest thing about finishing a training program is staying motivated.  For me, I usually make sure I have another race planned a few months after I race the one I'm training for.  I was too busy as the Road2Hope approached to get anxious about not having a race on the horizon after I finished the half and took off for Greece.  And for the most part I am still riding my post marathon high and have been able to fight off any urges to train for something "big".  I do get an addict-like feeing when I hear people talking about training for Around the Bay; knowing that I won't be running or training for the 30k race this year.  I have decided to run as a 3-person relay.  But it is hard to not have a plan in the works.

On Saturday I went out for a fun 7k girl power run with Gina and Katherine.  We ran and caught up.  I think I mostly talked about my trip and race.  I yesterday - just a quick 5k for no other reason than I wanted some fresh air.  Today I missed my planned gym workout so I went for a 7k run.  I will take tomorrow off from running.  I will be back to my intense yoga class so I will need all the energy my body can muster for the evening. 

Plus three days in a row of running is tiring even when you are not still recovering from a marathon.  But I think its like anything in life when you don't have to do it, whatever it is is that you don't have to do is that much more appealing.  Something great did happen during all of these non-required runs - and its something I'm rather embarassesd to admit to.  Here is a picture of my watch from today's run:

If you check out my best pace, you will notice that its in minutes per km.  No biggie you might think... well... I just figured out how to switch that from km/h to km/minute.  Duh - I am coming clean on the fact that I didn't know how to switch my watch to that setting.  I'll admit that I didn't read the instructions, but I work on a computer all day - I'm supposed to be technically savey.

Anyway this setting will hopefully help me run at the pace I need to in order to reach my goal times and help me stay on pace in races.  One of the things that the Road2Hope taught me was that I need to use this watch more than I have been.  I need to feel what running at a 5:14 minute/km pace is really like.  This also means something else, my husband was right about my training.  He kept asking when I was going to wear this watch and how was I planning to run a half marathon in a specific time if I didn't know what my pacing was in my training runs.  He was right.  Man that's almost as hard to type as it was seeing the clock at the finish lline reading 6 minutes more than my goal time.