New Running Soundtrack - the sound of my own awesomeness

Summer came back to Minnesota with a vengeance this week.  Sunday I took a 3 mile walk with a friend and was drenched with sweat by the end.  It was pretty to walk along the river.

Monday I woke up to run my long run of the week (14 miles).  At 545am I checked the weather in order to make final preparations.  It was 75* and a billion percent humidity.  I went back to bed.  I woke up later and hit the elliptical at the gym for "6 miles" and then the rowing machine for 30 minutes.  I'll do the long run on Friday when it cools down.

Today (Tuesday) I knew I had to get in a good run.  I left when it was dark so I was all decked out in my safety gear.  Or my runners suspenders as Jarrod calls them.

The weather was definitely better than on Monday, but only just barely.  The air was basically supersaturated with water, to the point there was fog everywhere.  It was gorgeous but it was hot.

I did something new on this run.  I ran without music for the first 2.5 miles or so.  (I had a landmark in my head that I wanted to get to.)  I started thinking about running sans headphones when I read this blog post.  I'd been toying with the idea for a while.  When I started off this morning and it was dark.  For safety reasons, it felt like the perfect time to give it a try.  I had my headphones with me and music playing, I just kept them in my pocket for a while and listened to the sound of my own greatness.  (There's a running joke on the internet that runners don't need music because they have the sound of their own awesomeness to entertain them.)

Around mile 2.5 or so, I put in my headphones, after the sun came up and I was on a trail away from the road.  I also took a few pictures since my iPod was in my hand.  Did I mention the fog? And the humidity?

All in all, this was a much faster run than I was expecting (for me).  I took the beginning too fast and kind of bonked at the end.  (There's this really steep hill...)  But I was still pretty satisfied with how it turned out.  This run just felt good.  Until that hill.  Also, according to Nike, I couldn't run a consistent pace if my life depended on it.  I must've really worked it because it took me forever to recover when I got home. 

I also tried a new breakfast smoothie (based partly on some fruits I needed to use up).  The ingredients were a super ripe nectarine, sans skin; vanilla yogurt (I hate plain); one kiwi.  I thought I'd need to throw in a liquid to make it more 'smoothie' like, but it turned out great as it was.