I had a great run this morning! It was still as warm as Tuesday's run (which was much slower), but I was able to maintain a much better pace. It just goes to show that how you feel on any given day can really affect your ability.

My warmup mile was slow (as intended). But that gives my muscles, tendons, ligaments a chance to get used to going from sleep to running. Taking your soft tissues through the range of motion at a slow pace has been an important part of injury prevention for me. Experts say not to stretch a cold muscle. The alternatives are dynamic stretches or doing 10-20 minutes of slow running (gradually picking up the pace) before your actual "at pace" run. That is how I do all of my runs now. I do a few fast paced strides in the last 1/3 of the warmup mile to get my body ready for moving faster on the subsequent miles.

It has been in the mid to upper 90's from the time I get home from work (7:30 PM) until about 9:00 PM, so running at night is out of the question for me. That leaves me with morning runs. It is cooler then, but the humidity is much higher. However, I love the quietness of early morning runs in the dark. I can hear the owls and coyotes, as well as see the nocturnal creatures such as raccoons and opossums.