FYI, Samoyeds are a breed of dog

miles: 4 (outdoors)
total program miles: 83.5
pain level: minimal
It's been busybusybusy the past week, hence the lack of updates. A few exciting things happened. On Saturday I went running with my friend Tina and her two Samoyeds. Tina recently completed a Couch-to-5k program, and she is feeling great about running. I'm slowly chipping away at her to run a marathon. After we ran three miles, she started walking and I ran another 5. Wohoo! 8 miles! That's the most I've ever done. And I felt gooood. I've noticed something about my running recently: I usually feel great at the start, tighten up around 2 or 2.5 miles, then loosen back up and get in a groove by 3.5 or 4. When Tina and I reached three miles I was tempted to just start walking and do a long run on Sunday. But I kept going and after another mile I felt so steady and strong that I didn't want to stop at 8. It happened to me again today, too. I went running on my lunch break (more about that below) and about halfway through 4 miles I got really tight and uncomfortable. I plowed on through and by the time five minutes had gone by I felt dandy.

As I mentioned above, I've been running during my lunch hour. I enjoy it because I actually get to run in DAYLIGHT! On a weekday! Yahoodles! My building has locker rooms, and we're located just a few blocks from Waterfront Park so it’s a pretty run, too. I think I'll keep it up during the week because running in daylight (even if its weak, clouded-over, damp daylight) is so much easier to face than running at night. Once the sun sets I tend toward sedentary. Plus it frees up my evenings. I've noticed on other runners' blogs, particularly those on a tight training schedule, that by the time they are near the end of training they feel like they’ve lost touch with all of their old friends and have no social life because they have to run five days a week (and the rest of the time they're exhausted). If I run at lunch I can still make evening plans, even if said plans are to do laundry and sit on the couch reading an Agatha Christie novel.