Inspired by the Mels

I got out of bed today and saw that it was a beautiful sunny day. I knew I had to go for a run. Then as I woke up a bit more and checked on my emails, I saw the weather report: 6 degrees! BRRRrrrr. This would be one cold training session this early in the fall. I proceeded to stall and procrastinate in the hopes that I would miss my window of opportunity to run and move on with the remainder of the day. Fortunately, it wasn't so. You can tell I'm obsessed about Endorphins and how to release them when even my procrastination is workout related. My wasting time online consisted of checking up on Ray's 310xt review and ShirleyPerly's crazy goal of 2 irons in 2 weeks among other blogs and articles I follow.

I decided to take some inspiration from the two Mels I follow.

Mel 2nd chances is an amazing athlete that recovered from a brain surgery and almost completed a marathon. Now she is into Triathlons. In recent days, her son Terron has lost his dad and yet he will still attempt his first Triathlon and dedicate it to his father. I am amazed and touched. Best of luck to Terron and my thoughts to the wonderful mom, staying strong during these trying times! Goosebumps and everything when I think of you Mel!

The other Mel that inspired me is all the way in Australia. She describes herself as trying to run, however she got past the trying and is now quite succesful with her first 6km completed earlier this week. Good work Mel! Reading about her running beginnings makes me think back of when I started running a few years ago and how exciting it was. It still is quite exciting but in a different way now. I get excited about better times and new gear, where when I first started I was happy just finishing a run. To honor Mel, I made my workout today a 6km run! :)

When I got out what hit me right away is how chilly the air was. Fortunately the sun was really strong and warm so it compensated somewhat. After stretching and making sure I was ready to go, I turned on the tunes and hit the pavement at what I expected would be an easy 5m/km pace. The music didn't agree with that and Oforia's Delirious got me pumped and completely out of my comfort range. I amazed myself at how long I could sustain the improvised tempo run. Look at all that beautiful green on the heatmap from RunSaturday:
I kept the engines on full steam until the 5km mark and then allowed myself a little bit a a breather in the last stretch (you can see it in blue on the map, I love this thing!). My 5km time was 21:30, the breakdown for each km:

• 4:12
• 4:21
• 4:10
• 4:19
• 4:27
• 5:05

It's always nice to realize that your training has taken you further than you imagined. Thanks for the inspiration everyone :)