Adaptation

Week 11 is flying by. JC is out of town for a week, so I'm a working single mom in addition to training. In order to fit all my workouts in, I've had to schedule each day down to the minute.

Today was my weekly long run. Normally I do the long run on Wednesday evening, but I had to switch it up and run before work today. It seemed like a good idea when I planned it:

5:30: Alarm goes off; hit the snooze twice
5:50: Start the coffeemaker; crawl in bed with Sophie to cuddle
6:00: Get Sophie up and started in her routine; get dressed; fix breakfast
6:40: Out the door to the bus stop 
6:45: As the bus pulls away, start my run
8:25: Finish run, stretch, eat, hop in shower, get dressed
9:10: Leave for work

However, Sophie's cough woke her up in the middle of the night, which meant I was up with her from 3 to 4am. When that alarm went off at 5:30, I was NOT a happy camper. Unfortunately, I also was not coherent, and I managed to turn off the alarm rather than hit the snooze button. Crikey.

I opened my eyes at 6:08 and uttered some bad words. By some miracle, I got Soph ready and out the door in time to catch the bus, but I hadn't done everything I needed to do before my run (fuel, dress properly for the run, etc). It was about 48 degrees and raining lightly, and it took every ounce of strength I had not to crawl back into bed.

So, at 7:15 (only 30 minute behind schedule!), I started my run. It was only cold for the first few minutes. I kept my jacket sleeve pulled down over C-3P0 so I couldn't see my heartrate or pace. I was supposed to run in Zone 2, so I set my watch to beep at me if my heartrate entered Zone 3. I just ran - no music, no heartrate monitor in my face, no planned route, no timer or pace screen ticking away.

IT. WAS. WONDERFUL.

It felt good. It felt easy. It felt fun. But the best part was, my pace was 45 seconds per mile faster than my previous long runs, and my heartrate was perfect. YIPPEE!!!! All those weeks of base building, all those slooooooooow runs and rides, they're paying off now. My pace is faster, my heartrate is lower (including resting heartrate, down by 7 beats per minute since 4 weeks ago), and I've dropped a little body fat and gained some muscle.

Have I mentioned how much I loved base phase? :)

Oh, one more thing: I did learn something today. Bacon before a 5-mile run is great. Bacon before a 10-mile run is not.