Well, today is my 38th birthday, and I was pleased to find that running at 38 feels very similar to running at 37 (so far). The best running present I could have asked for was a nice, chill-paced run with my buddies, and that is exactly what I got.
Today’s schedule called for 60 to 70 minutes at easy pace. Nathan, Josh, and I met at the Percy Warner Park main gates, and ran through the streets of Belle Meade on what was another crazy humid morning. After a first mile of 9:25, we kept the next four miles in the 8:40s and 8:50s.
At the end of mile five I suggested we take the fairly hilly Jackson Blvd all the way back to Belle Meade Blvd before heading to the main gates. After a small protest from Josh, we headed that direction and began to hit the hills. For some reason going up these inclines felt great, and I sub-consciously lowered the pace to an 8:14 sixth mile.
The highlight of a run on Jackson Blvd is passing the infamous “Gateway” mural that is painted onto the side of a house at the corner of Jackson and Harding Place…
For those of you unfamiliar with Nashville, Belle Meade is a very, very affluent area, and the fairly recent unveiling of this mural has caused quite a bit of controversy with their neighbors.
Anyway, after leaving Jackson, we finished up our run by taking Belle Mead Blvd back to the main gates at Percy Warner. All-in-all this was exactly the type of run I needed after the hard effort yesterday. I continued to feel better throughout, and my legs felt much better at the end than when we started. In total we ran for just over 65-minutes and finished 7.43-miles with an average pace of 8:48 per mile. Very enjoyable birthday run!
Beast Mode…ON!