I love training, and daylight

I'm in a fantastic mood today. No real idea why...but I'd rather not question it!

I got up this morning to swim, and got more than halfway through my swim when I realized it was supposed to be "intense" today since I didn't do an intense swim any other day this week.

So I kicked it into high gear and swam harder, then did a couple of timed 100's. 1:50 for the first, 1:48 for the second. That's an improvement...by like 2 seconds. :-) But I'll take it. There was also no panic and no reverting to unilateral breathing.

Then I did hot yoga, which was delicious for my body as always. Afterwards, I got to check out Aleks' new place - it's like a two minute walk from the hot yoga studio! I'm so jealous. And it's gorgeous. She looked so happy, and I'm so happy for her.

Work is fine, but it's sunny out and I needed to do a little more running this week. So I headed out for a quick run. I mapped a route with hill repeats. The big hill is .25 long - and 150 feet of elevation gained. I'm not sure what that makes the grade - does anyone know how to do that math? Anyway, really, really steep.

So I did three repeats, then headed back to the office. However, the route I'd mapped was 4.1 miles...and I returned to my building after 36 minutes. So I needed to run for nine more minutes. It felt great to know that even with the steep uphill parts (which I know I did in about an 11-minute mile - I timed those), I was running about a nine-minute mile for my comfortable pace. I ran another mile from the office, then came inside happy.

Last year when I did those same hill repeats, I had to walk on the downhill to be able to run up again. This year, I could probably do a few more repeats - maybe next week I'll go for five!

I think I'm happy because I've been really trying to spend more time in daylight. My office is inside (no window to the outdoors) and it's dark and I eat lunch in here most days, so I just don't see much of the sun. I need to make an effort to get out more. :-)