The Great Outdoors

A great day to run. The weather has changed and when I set out this morning it was about -1 Celsius as opposed to the -10 it has been as of late. Making the turn at the halfway point of a 12.5 mile run and suddenly facing the sun hammered home why I do this.... it simply felt great to be alive with the sun shining down on my face. The bonus today, in the second half of the run, was coming upon a pair of deer crossing my path about 10 miles in. Nothing like these chance meetings to lift ones spirits even further.

Today's run was at about a 8:56 / mile pace. Right about where I want to be in my base training. I was completely comfortable the entire time and found myself having to consciously slow down on occasion. There will be plenty of time for speed and tempo come February. Right now is all about the base. The other hope is that the slower, fat burning pace will be of profound benefit over the gorge-fest that is the Christmas Season. We actually hosted a party at our house last night and I managed to go completely alcohol free and ate sensibly. I am trying to be sensible in how I approach food and drink this year, as I don't want to dampen the progress I have made thus far.

One of the further pleasures of the long run is the opportunity it provides me, as the father of two, to have uninterrupted time to listen to podcasts and albums - something that doesn't always occur in the non-running hours of my day. This morning was especially fruitful in terms of music pleasure, the length of my run allowed me to listen to the following albums in their entirety:

1. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
   
2. Richard Hawley - Lady's Bridge
   

Having the opportunity to listen to them without interruption hammered home to me that they are two of the better albums of 2007 and that I will be putting them in heavier rotation on my runs. If you haven't heard them, give 'em a whirl... you won't be disappointed.