Becoming a morning person?

Anyone who knows me is pretty much aware that me and morning do not normally co-exist in a peaceful state. So it is with much surprise and awe that I'm writing this: I think I'm liking running in the morning. That's not a typo. I mean morning, as in the a.m., i.e. before noon. I've come upon this decision reluctantly. I think this has happened for a couple of reasons: 1) I'm so sleep deprived that I'm not quite sure what I think anymore, and 2) this damn running in the dark really sucks. A lot.

This was the first week Runner Wendy and I tried running our semi-long run in the morning. Our bosses were so cool as to let us tweak our work schedules one day a week and come in later in order to accommodate getting in a run in during daylight hours. (Shout-outs to Janet and Pam. You guys rock!) Though I had to get up at 5:45 for our morning run, it was a morale booster to see it getting lighter as we ran. It's amazing what a positive effect that had on our run!

We had 8 miles to do this week. Side note: it's really cool to be able to say "Yeah, I got an 8 mile run in before work today. How was your morning?" But I digress. We started out at our normal long run pace of about 11:35/mile. We had 2 hydration stops scheduled where we filled up on water, sports drink and Shot Blocks. Runner Wendy's husband Dan joined us for our last 3 miles. Dan is quite a bit faster than Runner Wendy and I, but he wanted to run with us for a while so he switched from tortoise to hare for the end of his run.

Not long after Dan joined us, I started to notice that we were running faster. A quick check of Wendy's GPS-watch-computer-thingy confirmed that we had picked up the pace about 15 seconds for mile 6. We all felt pretty good so we went with it. We picked up steam as we went. It felt like the farther we went, the faster we were going. Somewhere after mile 7, I notice Wendy checking her GPS-watch-computer-thingy again. Before she could say anything about our quickened pace, I said, "I don't want to know. I want to be surprised." We finished strong. When we finished Wendy announced that our last mile was run in 10:07 - a full minute and a half faster than our average pace! On mile 8. Let me emphasize that the 8th mile is not usually easier than the first 7. This was quite an achievement for us.

The turbo-boost run made my whole morning. Later, one of my co-workers asked me how my run went and when I said "Awesome!" he laughed. Not a quick chuckle mind you, but a full-on, let-me-catch-my-breath laugh. Apparently, knowing my aversion to mornings he didn't think my response jived with the question.