Time: 1:09:31
Distance: 6.1 miles

Yesterday's rest day was probably one of the best training decisions I've made in a while. When I woke up this morning, my legs were feeling fresh and not at all sluggish. I threw on my running clothes, looked out the window to make sure it wasn't raining (it was overcast and nice and cool for the first half of the run, the sun came out later and warmed things up).

As always I took the first mile slow, just to warm up the legs and let them know that we had a solid six miles to crank out today. They didn't seem to be complaining, so I settled into a comfortable pace for the rest of the ride.

Mile one felt great, mile two felt better and by mile three I was still feeling really strong, which surprised me because a lot of time that is where I start to fatigue. I was even running strong on the hills, which usually wipe me out. But today I powered up them and sure it was challenging, but it didn't zap me of all my energy and I still felt strong enough to keep going.

I cruised through miles four and five and right when I finished mile five I glanced down at my watch just to see how I was doing time-wise with one more mile left. To my complete and total surprise I was somewhere around 58:30. That's an entire minute and a half faster than I usually run five miles. I was so pumped.

As I started mile six, I could feel my legs were getting a little bit tired, but nothing too bad. So I kept the same pace I was going at and finished really strong. I finsihed so much faster than I expected that I had to double check the route on Gmaps when I got back to make sure I did actually run an entire six miles and didn't cheat somewhere and forget to take a turn or something.

But I hadn't. I had run 6.1 miles and I did it at a much faster pace than I expected to be able to handle. I'm so used to doing my long runs at 12 minute miles, but nothing hurt today and I didn't feel like I was taxing myself at all. In fact at some points I remember thinking, "Geeez I'm not breathing that hard, maybe I'm going slower than I think, maybe I'm not working that hard."

But according to the map and my watch, I went the right distance in a faster time!

Oh and when I got back home, I threw in a quick strength training session for fun. (Only like 20 minutes: squats, lunges, push-ups, tricep dips, etc.)

I've got two make up softball games tomorrow. They're pretty important to our playoff chances, as in, if we don't we, our playoff chances are shot. I'm looking forward to it. I've really come to love softball and I'm going to be really sad when it's over.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. And happy Father's Day to all the dads out there!