Morning runner?

This morning I did something I never thought I could do: I woke up at 5 a.m. and went to the gym. It was weird being on a treadmill before the sun came up, but it was certainly nice having my workout done at 6:30! I liked it, but it will require going to bed early every night, which is hard for a multitude of reasons.

I'm delighted to report that I'm up to 12 miles for the month of May, so I'm smashing my April mileage, which was a robust 6.8 miles. And if I can make this morning runner gig stick, I should be able to keep running consistently.

A problem with getting up early to run is I'll have to get up even earlier if I want to run more than 3 miles. The other problem is that because of working out so early, I'm starving right now and I need to ration my snacks to make them last until lunch!

I'm happy that running seems to be going really well now. I feel the best I've felt in a month and I also have my new custom orthotics. I got them last week and its taken some time to break them in, but they're really helping. Its interesting to wear my new orthotics and then my old ones because they're so different. My feet changed a lot in the two years since I got my first pair.

I've been wondering if I'd still be running the half marathon on May 30 if I'd gotten my new orthotics sooner. But it does no good to wonder what might have been! Enough about the new orthotics. I'm moving on to my training goals. I'm spending May just building up to a long run around 5 to 6 miles and weekly mileage of 12 to 15 miles. It seems low comparing to what I used to run way back when, but it would be quite an improvement for me right now. Then in June I'll start training again. The Madison Mini-Marathon is Aug. 21, and there's no way I'm not running it.