Nice early morning run to start off the week. I didn’t run yesterday, but did a fair amount of work outside instead and therefore wasn’t surprised to wake up with several rarely-used muscle groups aching and screaming out for attention.
I figured the best thing to do would be head out the door, stretch my legs and see if a morning run would help. The first mile felt a bit strange (7:40), but as I’d hoped, I was soon bounding along and feeling pretty good. Mile two came in at 7:09 and by this time I found myself on the local high school track running 100m striders to stretch my legs out even more. I followed each “strider” by jogging 100m as a recovery and enjoyed the mix of fast/slow/fast/slow.
Mile three and four were pretty even paced (6:43 and 6:47) and I ended up feeling nice and loose and running easily for a 6:35 last mile. Great way to start off the day and I think I’ve managed to shake off some of those early morning achy muscles too.
Note to self: 6 days to the Frederick Marathon.