Best. Run. Ever.

When I went to bed last night, I told myself that I could do 10-1 splits for my 4 miles this morning meaning that I would run 10 minutes, walk a minute, run 10 minutes, walk a minute, and so on until I completed my 4 miles. 

So when I hit the gym this morning, I was confident that I could make it through my 4 miles. I set  the timer for 60 minutes (because let's be honest - I am a slow runner) and started going. When I checked the time, I had already run over 10 minutes and I didn't feel like stopping. I told myself I'd run to 20 minutes and then take a walking break. But then I got really into my music and stopped looking at the clock. And then I told myself that I'd take a break in the middle of my time. But it's always so much harder to start up again once you've stopped. So I started thinking that I coud run the whole time if I really set my mind to it. So, I let myself get distracted by my music and before I knew it, I'd been running 45 minutes without stopping. So, I kept going until my hour was up. I ran about 4.5 miles. I was pumped! Not only was that the first time that I'd run over 5k, but it was the first time that I ran an entire hour (well, minus my two warm-up minutes). So freaking awesome.

I let myself cool down for 5 minutes bringing my total stats for this morning's run to 65 minutes (7 of which were spent during warm-up/cool-down) on the treadmill, 4.75 miles (I think), and 861 calories burned (according to the treadmill - I didn't bring my heart rate monitor home to be sure). So freaking pumped. Now I'm feeling a tad more confident about my 10k next month. And I'm feeling great because, for the first time, I really enjoyed myself while I was running. I kept it at a slow pace, I enjoyed my music, and I tried to keep good form the whole time so I wouldn't be sore afterwards. Felt so good. Go me.