Matter over mind

Tokyo, Week 4, Day 3; 4 miles, 8:17/mile.

Today was another cold one. When the alarm went off on my iPhone, I grabbed it to check out the weather: rainy and in 8ºC (45ºF). Already feeling tired (late night at the office), the weather did nothing to increase my gusto for a run. When I finally drug myself out of bed, I noticed that I was still feeling a bit sore and just tired overall. I wasn't expecting the run to be pretty.

I got my first break when I went outside; although it was cold, windy and cloudy, there was no rain. So, at the very least, I got to avoid my least favorite weather: cold, windy and rainy (I easily prefer it to be colder and snowing than to be a little warmer and raining).

The first half mile was marred by coughing (I might be dealing with a cold), which wrought havoc on my breathing rhythm for that part. As I continued along, I didn't feel like I was doing all that well at all during the run. My legs felt more tired than normal, so I felt like I needed to push myself a bit to maintain a pace at which I couldn't talk (as Wednesdays are "fast" days, and fast means I'm running too fast to talk comfortably). Even pushing it, I felt like I wasn't going very fast. I was sure my time was going to be close to 9:00/mile, but I didn't check as I thought hearing my Nike+ lady telling me that my pace was weak might be discouraging.

At the end of the run, I was pleasantly surprised to see on my iPod a terminal pace in the 7s (I thought I had sped it up a bit, but I didn't think I had sped it up very much) and an average of 8:17/mile. I was clearly more tired than last Wednesday, but I was also clearly not as tired as I thought.

None of which means I'm not looking forward to an easy run tomorrow and a rest day after that.