Sometimes you just can't control it, you go out for a run and its hard from beginning to end.

The sun's too bright.

It's hot for the first time in six months.

You probably should have brought a bottle of water with you.

Your legs feel like dead weight.

Never once during the entire run does anything feel easy. Sometimes bad runs happen to good people. There's nothing we can do about it, but chalk it up as a bad day and hope the next run is better.

My 4.5 miler yesterday was no fun for all of the above reasons so I was imagining my average pace per mile would be pretty crappy. But it wasn't. I ended up averaging 9:34 per mile, which was really shocking, because nothing about the run felt easy. And I certainly never felt like I was going fast. Quite the opposite, I felt like I was crawling.

I treated my legs to some nice stretching and foam rolling afterward to work out any kinks and to loosen them up for my next run. I'm not sure it was all that successful though because they are still mighty heavy today.

I head home to PA tonight to spend a long weekend with the family. I'm really looking forward to it. My mom and I are hitting the outlets tomorrow and I'm determined to get some sweet, cheap gear at the Under Armour store!