It isn’t a beautiful day because of the weather. In fact, it rained again today – hard. It was a beautiful day weatherwise on Thursday and I had the great good fortune to run in the sun. I covered 6.38 miles in 1:07:38 for an average mile pace of 10:35 – very respectable. But that isn’t the beautiful thing, either.

I had been wanting to go for a bike ride because I hadn’t done that since the Cinderella on March 28 which was quite some time ago. I just hadn’t gotten around to it either because it was raining or because I was focused on running. The time had come to get back in the saddle. Yesterday I went out at 6:30AM with friends C and B and I rode 25 miles with them. They continued up our local “mountain” but I didn’t want to do that because I still needed to run 6 miles.

On my way back it started raining. I couldn’t believe it. I had intended to get home on the bike, change shorts and shoes and head back out the door but no – it was really raining by the time I got home. I was starving so I ate then I needed to wait to run because otherwise stuff would be sloshing in my tummy and I would hurl. Then I decided I was sooooooo tired because I had woken up in the night and couldn’t get back to sleep for 3 hours so I took a nap. Then I got up and it was still raining and I did some stuff around the house.

Finally, at about 5:30 it seemed it might rain some more but it might not. I grumbled and complained to myself that I really couldn’t go running because it was late and it might rain. And then I said to myself, “Self – do you really want to get up tomorrow cursing yourself for failing to do what you said you would do? Can you really live with yourself if you do that?” And Myself said, “Hell no – not a chance” so I got on my running stuff and headed out the door. I thought I went 3 miles before I turned around but somehow when I got home I had only gone 5.42 miles but that was okay. It took me 57:22 for an average pace of 10:34/mile. Very respectable.

But that isn’t the beautiful thing, either. The thing that made today beautiful is that yesterday I rode my bike 25 miles and I ran 5 miles and today my legs are NOT sore. Repeat – my legs are not sore. And that means I am getting stronger and fitter and that, my friends, is a beautiful thing.

Tomorrow I swim and then Tuesday I run at least 6 miles, maybe more.