Hills: 10 minutes easy out to the hill. Three sets of 8 minutes hills (one minute up, one minute down) with 5-6 minutes easy run in between sets. 10 minutes easy run home.

Distance: 6.5 miles

Time: 56:56

Performance Stats (out of 5 ★)

Legs: ★ ★ ★ ★

Gut: ★ ★ ★ ★

Energy: ★ ★ ★ ★

Mind: ★ ★ ★ ★

Overall: ★ ★ ★ ★ .5

Soundtrack: Sevendust, Chapter VII: Hope & Sorrow

There was just no way that I was getting up at 4 AM this morning. I hit the snooze only once, and decided no way! The sleep felt good, but I spent a good portion of the morning trying to figure out how I was going to fit in this hill run AND the weekend long run. After a lot of thinking, it was looking like I was going to have to drop this run.

Then everything really fell together in the afternoon at work, and I was out of there way ahead of my usual schedule. I drove home and realized that I didn't have any of my work constraints keeping me from running at night, being Friday night and all. So I quickly checked in with the family, threw on my running stuff, and headed out for the hill up the road.

What a beautiful evening it was running at sunset. The view from the hill was perfect for checking out the setting sun lighting up the clouds in the sky all different colors of red, pink and orange. Since I wasn't waking up during the first part of the run, like on my morning runs, I had great energy the whole run. And since I wasn't rushing off to work right after I was able to sneak in some extra distance in between the hill sets, which extended the great run.

Moral of the story - mix it up and think creatively, it just might create the best run of the week!