Lovely, just lovely

Little YaYa handed out valentines to the family this morning. He was so proud to have something for us. I even got a cozy hug from him. He’s such a sweetie. As I drove the kids to school this morning I was happy to see that the rain clouds had all disappeared. I was looking like it would be an absolutely lovely day.

And it was.
Valentine’s Day or not, at the office, it was business as usual. I was keeping busy with little tasks that all seemed to be adding up. It was already well into the normal lunchtime hour by the time I was able to wrap things up at my desk. My body was already asking for fuel, but I didn’t want to eat before my run. I hurried down to the cafeteria to pick up some soup and a protein drink for after my run. On the way, I downed some stale trail mix and a package of Shot Blocks.

Outside of these corporate walls, the day was turning into an unbelievably beautiful day. Even those who do not usually venture outdoors could not resist. I could see Mark heading out on his run as I was walking past the window with my lunch. I wasn’t sad to see him leaving without me. I was actually glad to be going it alone today.

Besides upping my long run mileage, Coach has also increased the time for fast interval in this week’s pickup workout. You wouldn’t think that 10 seconds would make any difference, but I found myself anticipating the beep-beep-beep way before Garminia sounded with her signal. It wasn’t that I was tired; it just took me a while to get in synch with the new timing.

Just when I thought all was going well, I was hit with a pickup interval gone awry. It went like this: I pushed the button and picked up the pace. In front of me was an older man walking but I figured that I would be finished before I got to him. As I got closer and closer to him I realized that I was wrong. I stayed to the far left edge of the narrow path and kept charging ahead. I was waiting for the signal, but it didn’t come.

I finally looked at the lap time and discovered that 56 seconds had passed. Oh, I was so confused. I hit the lap button and the message said to pick it up. Eek! I hesitated, trying to decide if I wanted to go for it or not. I ended up picking the pace back up, knowing that it was my final pickup.

I ran at my easy pace back to the office where soup, my protein drink, and more chocolates (should I want it) were all awaiting me. Speaking of chocolate, it looks like I owe somebody a box of chocolates – because I did have a good run today. I had a lovely run today.