Remember the last time I ran a mile time trial, and I was so excited?

Well, I ran a mile time trial again tonight, and it was far less exciting.

I had a session with my trainer this morning, and other times I’ve run after working out with her, my legs have felt like utter jello, so I decided to postpone today’s run for tonight since I had no plans tonight.

I didn’t leave work until almost 8, which is not terribly late by normal-life standards, but might as well be the middle of the night for running. Especially when it’s already dark and you have 8 miles planned for tomorrow morning. I had 5 miles on my schedule (4.5 after you subtract some intervals I did this morning in between strength moves) for tonight but knew I’d have a hard time sleeping if I did it tonight.

Here’s what I have on deck for this week, and I looked at it and tried figure out how I could move things around.

One mile? No matter how tired my legs are, I can crank out a mile. Less than 10 minutes and I’ll be done.

So, out to Madison Square Park I went to knock out that mile. My legs were still feeling pretty sore, and I was tired. I figured I probably wouldn’t break my past record tonight, but I didn’t think this would happen…

It’s not just that it’s more than two minutes slower. It’s that it’s wrong. The last time I did the time trial, I think I ran about two laps around the park, but I didn’t remember exactly where I started and stopped, so I just went by my watch tonight.

Bad idea.

(Map from Garmin)

No, Garmin, no. I don’t even know how I could possibly run in this formation.

I ran two laps around the park, looked down at my Garmin, and it was just around .7 miles. I ran another 3/4 of the way around the park (for a total of 2.75ish laps of the park) before my Garmin beeped one mile.

(Map from MapMyRun)

Here’s my actual run. Around the perimeter. Like a semi-normal person. (You know, a normal person who runs two laps around a park as fast as they can at 8pm.)

1.31 miles, which is a 6:16 pace. Which is still faster than I ever thought I could run, but not faster than last time. How quickly we change expectations, right?

I’m not going to wait until next month to try this time trial again. I foresee another one next week, once my Garmin and I have had some time to chat and work out our differences.

But hey, at least I’m down one workout from my schedule this week. Four to go.

What’s your primary way of tracking time/mileage/pace? Do you have a backup?

Working in social media means everyone at work knows about my blog. Which is only occasionally weird. But it also makes for easy connections with coworkers who like to work out that I might not know about otherwise.

One of those people is a lovely man named Mike. I’m terrible at guessing age, but let’s just say he’s older than me and younger than my dad.

We met at a new business pitch a few months ago, and he apparently had looked at my blog at some point.

“So you run?” he asked.

“I do!”

Turns out he’s also a runner, but at the time, he was starting to feel some knee and ankle pain but trying to run through it.

Pretty soon after that, he went to physical therapy and now is staring down surgery next week.

Whenever we see each other in the halls, he asks if I ran that morning. Usually the answer is yes–or “no, but I’m going tonight.”

Once he became completely sidelined, he started answering “Lucky.”

I usually just smile and nod, but this morning he asked, and I answered that I’d run 6 miles last night and 7 this morning, and I did realize how lucky I was.

Lucky that, no matter how much money I blow on running, it’s still cheaper than therapy.

Lucky that I have this hobby that can be as social as it can solitary.

Lucky that I have this hobby that I can take with me wherever I go, whether to Hawaii for fun or LA on a business trip.

Lucky that I can do it for as long as I want or as short as I want, as easy as I want or as hard as I want.

Lucky that it’s every bit as mental as it is physical.

Lucky that it helps me keep the weight off.

Lucky that it reconnects me with old friends and gives me new things to bond over with long-time friends.

The past three runs I’ve had have been amazing, and do truly make me feel lucky to be a runner, rather than that I’m just logging the runs on my training plan.

Last night, I left work a little after 7:15. I had 6 miles on the schedule, and I was hoping it wouldn’t get too dark out while I ran. (June, please come back.) I ran over to the West Side Highway, didn’t look at the pace, and just ran. I felt great, and when I turned to run back east from the path, I felt so great that I probably could have run another a few miles, were I not starving and were it not getting dark.

Today, I had 7 miles of hills on deck. I don’t usually run at night and then in the morning–and won’t do it often since you probably need more recovery time than that–but knew I didn’t feel like running at night again, as awesome as last night’s run was. I woke up a bit stiff, but decided to go for running up Lexington to the Queensboro Bridge. I forgot how hilly it is running uptown, and the first few miles were not easy, yet, for a run I wasn’t trying to push, I kept a pace I was really happy with. When I hit 4 miles, I was just under 36:00. My Garmin died shortly after this, so I’m just going to assume I dropped to 4:00 miles and just missed my Olympic calling.

I got home and was ecstatic that I’d gotten seven miles in before work–it’s definitely my longest run before work to date, although I’m going to break that really soon by doing 16 before work Friday.

Mike, you’re right. I am lucky to be able to run.

Four years ago, I couldn’t run.

I might not be able to run tomorrow.

But today, I can run, and for that, I am lucky.

What are you lucky you can do? Runners, what reminds you you’re lucky to be able to run?