Hitting the Trail

I have been running a lot lately and am finally (finally!) feeling like I've gotten a little of my running mojo back. Lately I'm running five days a week, and it feels good. It's not the "Ugh, I need to run today" feeling that I had over the winter when I was fighting with myself to get in even three runs a week. I'm sure some of this is the weather. There are few things I'd rather do on a gorgeous day than get in a run. But it's also partly that the more I run, the more I want to run. I feel like my pace is picking up, and I even did a pretty solid tempo run yesterday. It seems too bad that I'm not marathon training this year because I am running more days per week now than I was in the thick of marathon training. I am, however, training for a September half-marathon (that I haven't actually signed up for yet). This is week 2 of training, and for the first time ever, I'm following a training plan that calls for speed training, etc., so we'll see where that gets me.

Last Sunday, my in-laws had the girls for the weekend, so Dean and I decided to go for a trail run (something I've been wanting to do for a long time). Some trails near our house (out at Palos) were voted among the top 10 trail runs in the United States by Runner's World (D says this is just because they needed to include trails near Chicago, so who knows), and I've been itching to get out there but didn't want to go alone lest I get lost. Anyhow, we headed out there together, which was a rare treat. And talk about fun! I think I could very easily get hooked on trail running. It takes so much concentration that you don't have room to think about anything (anything!) other than where you're going to step next, which is rather refreshing to me since I normally overthink everything to death (shocking, yes?). I can't wait to get back out there for another run.