Awesome workout

I had a very excellent mile repeat workout last night. The roads and sidewalks were still icy in places, and since it had been raining all day I didn't think the trail would be a good place to go for mile repeats, so I opted for loops around Memorial Stadium. Two laps around the stadium is 1.1 miles, and although there is some car traffic, it is light and the surface was virtually ice-free. The distance to the stadium also works perfectly as a warm-up.

The first rep was long (I wasn't paying attention to my Garmin), so I did one 1.1 mile rep and two 1 mile reps. My times were 7:26, 6:54, and 6:48. I am very pleased; my average mile time was 6:48 and my total time for what turned out to be a 5K was 21:06. My rest times were about three minutes. I was very pleased, especially since I didn't feel like I was pushing that hard; my goal was to average 7:15 miles (7:25's is just at 23:00). This gives me a huge boost of confidence that I can break 23:00 at the Anthem 5K.

Last night I spent some extra time stretching, since I'm trying to be better about that. I had looked up some stretches on the Internet to find good ones to do for specific muscles, so now I feel that I'm stretching a little more efficiently instead of just doing whatever comes to mind.

After the run, Mark and I went out to eat to celebrate the fact he got a very generous raise! He was expecting to get something, but not nearly as much as he got. I'm very proud of him, and of course happy about the extra money. We went to Outback because he had his heart set on a Bloomin' Onion. They are darn good, but oh, my stomach was not happy with me for the rest of the night! I barely touched my entree, which was a really excellent piece of chicken with steamed veggies (that will be lunch today, yum).

On another front, I have barely been reading the multitudes of books that I have lying around that beg to be read. I'm still working on the books Megan let me borrow. I'm completely bogged down in The Name of the Rose, and in fact started reading another book of hers instead. I think I might return it to her and get my own copy so I can mark it up and take my time a bit more. The book I started on is called The Horsecatcher and I'm actually enjoying it very much, but I just don't seem to be able to find much time to read it. It's not that I don't have time. I blame TV and reality shows. I'm totally under the curse. I also now have at least four different shows that I watch regularly (Heroes, The Office, Scrubs, and Bones), and of course they are on three different nights. And somehow we always end up watching things like American Idol, Wife Swap, etc. Argh. I also spend a lot of time now perusing the online forums on Coolrunning and Runner's World. Ack. I suck.