Weird post title right? I’ll get to it in a minute.

So this whole Daylight Saving Time ending thing puts a major damper on my running. I’m not overly fond of treadmill running, and the only thing even remotely close to the level or boring that is treadmill running is running on a track (for me at least). So, if I don’t remember to pack running clothes to work, running after work outside is pretty much out of the question. So all this week I pretty much completely forgot to do that, with the exception of yesterday.

And naturally it was wind as hell outside.

But it did taper off a bit and since I decided to go run on the Katy Trail, it was a little more shielded from the wind.

I’ve decided to set goals for my runs, instead of just going out and running x number of miles. So last night I gave myself a goal of not letting my pace get over 16:00/mile. Please remember I am really slow, so this is a pretty decent goal for me.

Apparently I was a little over-excited about the whole thing because when I checked my pace after the first quarter-mile, I was running in the high 9:00/mile pace range! While it was nice to know that I could do that, it was not going to be a feasible pace to maintain for the duration of the run, and I had to very actively work on slowing down. I did manage to clock my first mile at 14:35 and I started to head back towards my car. I did take one quick walk break to stretch my back out, because I was having some tension in it, but other than that no walking at all during my run. My second mile came in a 15:40, which wasn’t a bad pace and my overall run time was 30:18, equating to a 15:09/mile pace.

Overall I’m pretty pleased with the run and hitting my pace goal, and am looking forward to pushing myself to be a better runner this year. I’m hoping to set some new PR’s this year, so pushing myself in workouts and setting goals for my runs is what I need to be doing.

Now for the basset hound title. I want you to stop reading here for a minute and google basset hounds running. It’s cool, I’ll wait.

Ok, now don’t you feel ten times better than you did before?

I was running last night a passed a lady walking her two dogs. Well, she and one dog were walking, the other dog was trying to keep up by running. And he was a basset hound. And I COULD NOT stop my self from getting a laugh out of it. He just looked so adorable running along all floppy-faced!

Today is a rest day for me and then I have yoga and running on tap for tomorrow and biking on Sunday (hopefully!). I’m looking forward to a semi-relaxing weekend.