Zoom … ka-boom!

Imagine my suprise as I set out on my seven-mile tempo run this morning to find this, at about the end of the first mile:

At the tippy top of the photo is a train moving along the tracks. The two empty coal cars (and an additional one not pictured) you can see braced against those trees were, until last night, moving along those tracks. The entire hillside is covered with coal.

It didn’t slow me down, though.

My goal was to jog a 15-minute warm-up and a 15-minute cooldown, on either side of five 11-minute miles. That would have been 85 minutes. While it didn’t work out the way I planned – still haven’t learned to pace myself – I actually beat my target time. Woo hoo! Or, rather, zoom-zoom!

Splits, anyone? 12:24, 11:05, 11:35, 11:56, 11:51, 11:55 and 12:52 – for a total of 1:23:41.

This has, so far, been my best week of training. I feel confident, strong, capable and running is fun. For all of those things to be true at the same time is pretty cool.

Now, though, it’s back to politics. (Big political news today, in case you’ve been avoiding your cable outlets.) Or dinner.