Easy AND Fun!

With the beautiful weather (snow melting) and not having class tonight, I was able to get out for a nice run before dinner. Yes, outdoors! Probably the first since my 5K on New Year's Eve! Actually, with the time change, I could have gone for a 3 hour run after school. . . . if I wanted to. That is quite a change from a couple months ago when we were lucky if the sun was up past 5pm. Since it is a rare occasion to run outdoors during winter up here in ND (especially when I have a rule that I will not do it in the dark and when the temperature is below 30 degrees), I had a hard time deciding how to dress. It was 40 degrees when I got home from school. Not the 56 they said it was going to be, but it was definitely nice enough to take advantage of. Eventually, I put on an older pair of yoga pants, one of my running shirts, old Nikes, heart rate monitor, garmin, ipod and then my fleece sweatshirt. Plus, I grabbed my camera. Phew.

I left the apartment and headed north on my 3 mile loop. This is the same loop I did quite often this past summer. I became quite hot real fast, as the sun was beating down on me, but I didn't care. I was actually comfortable outdoors. On the way back, it was a little cooler as I found myself running under trees that were blocking the sun.

There were times where I found myself jumping over puddles or snowbanks. And then there were times I would end up running through puddles that didn't look too deep, initially. Sometimes I found myself running on the street to avoid huge puddles on the sidewalks .... only to find myself being splashed purposefully by some guy. But I was okay with that. I just smiled and waved and went on my merry way. It was nice out. I was enjoying it.

All and all, 3 miles felt great. Now, I need to go work on my brackets for March Madness! Yippee! I can't wait for the games to begin!