Howdy readers!

So this morning in my news feed I came across this photo…

runfree

along with this quote from this facebook page…quote

Well, I thought about making today’s long run a “run free” run. First I said no watch, then I decided how about tape over the face of the watch. I’m not ready to not track my run with my Garmin but I did think about how nice it would be to not get caught up in keeping a certain pace and just run based on effort. Of course after I left the house I realized I forgot the tape. So I TRIED to not look at my watch. And for the first mile I didn’t. I knew I was probably running a slow 11:35 pace. When I looked at my watch it said 11:37! How crazy is that?! Anyway, I kept cheating and realized that I might be a failure when it comes to the whole “run free” thing. Meanwhile EVERY time I looked at my watch it was the pace I FELT I was running. So really, I DO know my pace by effort and don’t really need the watch.

splits

9 miles at just under a 12 minute mile pace. Woah! That’s SNAIL pace for me (I’m usually between 10-11 min per mile pace). I started my run at 2:30pm with hot sun beating down. It was 82 degrees. But the humidity was at 50% and my unhealthy fixation with the hourly weather showed that the humidity was going up a whole lot while the temps were only dropping a degree or two in the next few hours, so I figured i’d go with the lowest percent humidity for the day to start my run. In hindsight, I should have waited until 7pm to start. Oh well. But the 9 miles are done. And I think I want to try a “no-peek-at-my-garmin” run again.

After I came home and showered I decided this doodle deserved a little fun time….so we went to the beach.

beachbum

Question: Have you ever gone for a run without a gadget to tell you your current pace? Do you run with music or without?