Good times bad times...

Question: If you're set to do a 6 mile run, but instead of running straight 6, you run 2m, then take a 30 minute break, then run 4.5m, does that count as a 6 mile run?

My vote is YES.

During the course of Sunday's long run (6 miles, you guessed it), SoxFan and I had a little conversation after the first 2 miles. The first 2 miles had gone pretty well, and I feel confident that I could have run 6 miles pretty well. But, our conversation ended up taking about 30 minutes, making me feel needlessly (?) guilty and slacker-like. We ended up doing the last 4.5 miles after the sun was WAY too high in the sky, so rather than being a delightful early morning jaunt down the Silence of the Lambs trail, the run turned into the oven-temperature death slog through the holy-hills batman and did you see the size of that bee?

I was tempted to go through another tedious self-loathing session afterward, but I was exhausted, dude, so I just threw in the towel. I mean, I got the run done, right? I even did an extra half mile as penance for my resting ways. And I did extra stretching when I got home. I'm hoping it all evens out in the end.

Monday called for "Stretch and Strengthen", and that's just what I did. We bought an exercise ball and a few free weights and even some resistance bands over the weekend, so I made great use of those last night. I did ball crunches (oh, that sounds funny).... and pelvic thrusts (hahaha)... and I did some seated row with the resistance bands and a few push-ups and even some curls. Oh yeah.... I'm going to have some huge ripped guns after about 8 billion reps with my 8lb weights. To cover the "Stretch" part of Monday's routine, I rolled a few times on the foam roller, basically until my IT bands started audibly threatening my life, at which point I retreated to the sofa.

And then there was today.

As I started today's run, I was thinking about the Facebook. (I was also thinking about how frigid it was outside, but mostly I was thinking about the Facebook.) It's truly the best and the worst of everything, isn't it? It's how you keep in touch with old friends, and it's how you stay in "the know" about your friends' (and your frienemies') love lives, and it's how you win at Scrabble (hey, I won't tell anyone you use that website to cheat, dude!). But sometimes, you end up running into ghosts there. And that's just what's happened to me recently. Innocently enough, I sign on... I need to check who's dating who... and who's changed their profile picture, etc.... And then, there's a blast from the past staring me in the face. This time, it was an especially friendly ghost (or so I hope, at least), and I took a chance and started a conversation.

This was all on my mind as I began tonight's run. So maybe that is why tonight's run came off without a hitch. I was really thinking hard about my old friend, and how and why we'd grown apart. I was trying to figure out how I felt about initiating a conversation and perhaps even a renewed friendship.

So when my Garmin beeped and beckoned me out of my introspection, and I noticed the little pace notice flashing at me, you can imagine my surprise to find that I was running the fastest splits I'd ever run on the Silence of the Lambs trail. Even on the uphill stretch, even on the last mile of the 4 mile run, I was getting faster! Don't believe me? Here are the official splits.

I know that seems glacial to most of you... but for me, it's pretty flipping fantastic. It was a great run. And it came at just the right time, too. After Sunday's debacle, I desperately needed a running pick-me-up.