Some days you just absolutely surprise yourself, and today was one of those days.  My run today turned out to be a shockingly good run, coming so soon after SwimRun NC.

The run workout that I planned to do was quite simple.  Warm up for about a mile and then go straight into a hard effort for five miles, before cooling down.  My expectations were not great.  After all, I had just finished an almost 7 hour endurance race at the weekend, and my legs felt fatigued on my run yesterday.

As I started my warm up run, I still sensed some fatigue in my legs.  This was not unexpected, so I went into the five mile interval, with no great expectations.  In fact, I was OK if it turned out to be incredibly hard and also quite slow. My main focus was on staying relaxed and taking it one mile at a time. I didn’t look at my watch to check my pace.

My watch buzzed after a mile and I looked down.  It said 07:29. I was really pleased.  My legs were not feeling fresh and yet I was moving at a good pace.  Could I hold this pace for the next mile?  It turned out that I could… my watch buzzed and I saw 07:30.  Now I was starting to get pretty happy about my run.

Seeing a couple of good miles proved to be very motivating.  I was able to push through some discomfort for the rest of the run.  The miles passed by… 07:15 for mile three, 07:24 for mile four and finally, 07:20 for mile five.  When the watch buzzed at mile five, I immediately dropped my pace to a slow jog, so I could catch my breath.

As I ran back to my car, I knew that I had just run well.  I thought that, maybe, it was my fastest five mile run of the year.  It turned out to be exactly that, but even more surprising, was that it was third fastest five miles, of all time!  I had just finished a shockingly good run, and had done it on legs that are surely still fatigued.  I am still on a high about it, hours later.

Some days you just have a good run.  The key is to enjoy the day, but then move on.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring?