I loved the time change this morning! My alarm went off at 7, and it was great! The sun was already up. Not so surprisingly, I didn’t have any problem getting out of bed.

The weather was predicted to be cold this morning. But it was about 8 degrees colder than the weather had predicted last night. The problem was that starting out at 25 degrees, I knew it was likely to be 40 degrees by the time I was done. Those two temperatures call for totally different wardrobe choices.

But I’d rather deal with being a little hot for a few minutes toward the end of my run than cold for a long time, so I bundled up in pants, a long sleeved shirt, a jacket, a winter hat, and sunglasses. It was the first time I’ve worn the long sleeved shirt – a $1 purchase at a garage sale this fall, so there was some question as to how the shirt would do (it was perfect).

The time change didn’t only affect me this morning. I never see anyone else out on my runs around Oakley/Marion. This morning I saw 6 people out walking in my first half hour. It was great to see other people out, waving and saying good morning. This also meant that dogs were out, so I adjusted my run just a little so that I didn’t have to listen to them barking at me. It’s just more peaceful that way.

I didn’t run as fast as planned this morning. I attributed this mostly to the cold and the accompanying cold muscles, and partially to the fact that it was so pretty out that I just enjoyed myself. I was plenty warm – no need to rush I did my 11.25 miles at close to an 11 minuter per mile pace.

So, if you’re a distance runner, you know you typically don’t run the whole distance of your race before hand…you run long enough to cover the time it will likely to take you to finish your race, just to get your body used to moving that long.

Well, for this half-marathon, I’m trying something different. I have no doubt that my muscles can recover from a 13 mile run within a few days, and I don’t want to be struggling through the last few miles. If you think ‘gee, Amber’s running a bit long for this point in her training’, you’re right. I’m planning on doing 2 or 3 runs of 13 to 14 miles in the next month, and then doing a normal taper (meaning, running only 8 or 9 miles for a long run) the week before the half. It’s certainly not what most training programs would recommend, but I want to see if it works for me.