Nighttime running = protein!

Typically Sundays are my rest days.  I do my long run on Saturday and then nothing till Monday.  I realized this afternoon, though, that this week would have to be a bit different.  I know that I want to rest on Wednesday (the day before my 5K race).  Thus, I would like to do an easy run on Tuesday, which is typically a cross-training day for me.  Tomorrow (Monday) is really busy... due to various reasons, the only time I could run would be on the treadmill (hereafter known only as the dreadmill) at the gym at around 9 PM tomorrow night.  I do my best to avoid the dreadmill at all costs, so I quickly decided that I would have to run tonight, and do some cross-training tomorrow while the twins nap.  We were at my in-laws to celebrate the twins' third birthday tonight, so I ended up not being able to get out for a run until after we got the kids to bed, which ended up being well past 9:00 PM.

Let me be the first to say that I am not a nighttime runner. I think I may have done it once before.  I decided to run sans music, which isn't my preference but I wanted to be able to hear what was going on around me.  I stuck to the main roads (well, the sidewalks by the main roads), and wore my husband's headlamp.  He goes night fishing frequently, and I am sure it works great for him.  Not so much for my sweaty forehead; it kept slipping down and got quite annoying.  Add to all this that I got more than my daily RDA of protein from the bugs that I kept swallowing, and yes, we can say that I would much prefer to get up at the crack of dawn and run!  As I said, that wasn't going to be possible tomorrow, so tonight had to be it.

My planned run for Monday was 3 miles, with the first two at an easy 9:45-10:00 pace, and the third mile descending down so that the final half-mile was at my 5K goal race pace (which is 8:12/mile).  Unfortunately, I forgot to set my Garmin to half-mile splits, so I don't know exactly what I averaged that last half-mile, but I think I was pretty close to where I wanted to be.  My splits were 9:53, 9:42, and 8:35.  

Here is my plan for the remainder of the week:

Monday--Jillian Michael's 30-Day Shred + Push-up Challenge (I will blog about this tomorrow)
Tuesday--easy 3 mile run (going to try REALLY hard to keep this one at around 10:15-10:30/mile)
Wednesday--Push-up Challenge
Thursday--5K race!
Friday--bike & weights at the gym + Push-up Challenge
Saturday--5 mile long run (no real pace goal here; just getting in the miles and stretching it out after what I hope to be an awesome PR on Thursday morning!)