Normally my comfort zone is running at a pace between 5:50 and 6:00 minutes/km. After a week off and two weeks of treating every run as a slow run, well that comfort zone is definitely gone. When I headed out tonight I felt like I was flying. And then I looked at my watch. How could I feel so fast when my average pace was 6:10? Honestly, I felt like I was breaking speed records. But, I reminded myself that I am not going to be obsessed with numbers and carried on.

And then it happened. When I turned at the halfway point to head home I got to experience that slightly magical feeling when everything falls into place. Without trying harder I was suddenly running faster. With a cool autumn wind behind me and a setting sun in front, I was running effortlessly. My iPod Nano landed on “Crash” by Dave Matthews. Not exactly a running pace tune, but a powerful song both vocally and musically. I couldn’t help but smile. These running moments are special, but they are just moments. It didn’t take long for it to become work once more, hard work at that. But in the end I finished 8k with a 5:57 average pace. I had enough in me to do a fairly fast sprint, and once again my music seemed in sync with my run. My last few minutes I ran to Canadian singer Joel Plaskett’s “Million Dollars”. Nothing like running to the words, “We’ll go out, we’ll take no prisoners; we look like a million dollars; every time they look at us we’ll blow their minds”. Those are fighting words:) Another line from the same song that might be quite appropriate for marathon race day: “Let’s go make some history before we fall apart.”