Foul mood is foul today.

Distance: 3.23 miles
Duration: 35:07
Avg Pace: 10:57 min/mile (wow, under 11 min/mile!)
Route: MapMyRun

A short run. I really struggled with this one. I didn't feel great when I woke up this morning. I still don't feel great.

Have I mentioned before that I have a 10 month old baby? She sleeps great most of the time, but the past couple of nights, she's woken up 3:30, 4, 4:30 am and been just ready to play. I am a pretty evil subhuman version of myself at those hours. I'm fortunate enough that my husband is around to help out and go sit with her some of the bad mornings, but I still wake up when she cries. I don't function well with super broken up sleep. Momma needs her beauty sleep!

So I didn't get great sleep last night. I woke up in a foul mood. There's a lot of other personal stuff going on with my siblings, which I won't get into, but needless to say, there's a LOT on my mind.

So usually I run to clear my mind. To de-stress. To calm my nerves and relax.

All I could think about during today's run was how quickly I could get home. And how my pants fit funny and my belly was squishy. and how much stuff I need to do before I go on vacation. And all the sibling stuff. and and and...

There's so much going on -- even a run in gorgeous sunny weather couldn't clear my head today.

But I don't wannnnnnnnnaaaaa....

Distance: 5.04 miles
Duration: 56:24 (just under an hour!)
Avg Pace: 11:11 min/mile (that's pretty darn good for an easy run!)
Route: MapMyRun

I'm actually shocked that I ran 5 miles on my lunch break today. I really really didn't feel up to it when I got my shoes on. I didn't feel like running for an hour -- told that to a friend on IM, even. But once I got started, just after the 2 mile mark, and after all the pretty parts of my usual route, I turned left instead of right and made the commitment to running at least 4 miles.

Then, just before the 3.5 mile mark I decided to go for it and ran across at the light. This meant I was committing to at least 4 miles, maybe more.

The last 3/4 mile was rough and real hard to keep up. I got a horrible side stitch and almost stopped running altogether.

But then I rounded the corner and made it home.

I'm very proud of my "easy run." I'm very happy how mellowed out I feel after it. There was definitely a point when my mind was at a complete blank and there was a time when I was just lost in my thoughts. Not too bad for a lunch break run.

Oh, look, forsythias...

Distance: 3.24 miles
Duration: 37:11
Avg Pace: 11:27 min/mile
Route: MapMyRun

It was a cold and drizzly day. and I went for a run anyhow. I hated the run; I hated being out there today, but I needed it for my sanity. Does running in the drizzly rain make me crazy, obsessed, stupid, or hardcore?

I got a side stitch in the first half mile. I ran through it and by the second mile, I had forgotten about it.

I thought about blogging a lot while I was on this run. Then I also thought about how I keep meaning to call my mom about the forsythias (which I always called for-cynthia's). I thought about Twitter, too. And how much I hate the last half mile (it's SO boring). and how my heart rate would go up at the exact same points of my run. oooh, and how when I start running on a cool day, I hide my hands inside the sleeves of my sweatshirt, but by about the first .75 mile, my hands are plenty warm and I pop them out. Every time. And how I'm going to convince a friend to run outside with me just one time so he can see how awesome it is. I also thought about how my pants felt like they were going to fall off. Did I mention there's another really boring part of my run? It's from about 1.5-2 miles.

Aaaaaaaand my mind was just blank a lot of the time, too - just concentrating on my breathing.

See? Running is my meditation.