Ah, the wash of sunshine pouring over you after 3+ months of layers and confinement. Few things are as underrated as sunshine to those who bask in its warmth year-round. Granted, as a transplant from South Florida, I, too, took sunshine as an undeniable constant for a time. As my northward migration has taken me through Nashville, and now DC, I have undone that expectation to wake up to the warmth of that lovable ball of burning gas.

Well, this past weekend, not two days after my last rambling about the cold weather, did we get a taste of a heatwave! I know, I know, particularly as a native Floridian, 55* and sunny is no heatwave. But when the temperature nearly doubles from the days prior, it is no less an event

than an unseasonably snowy seasonal snowstorm. It was glorious, and it really made me appreciate the beautiful weather after having been without for several months.

Now, don’t get me wrong, if I had a choice, it would be 55* and sunny every time I laced up my shoes. Screw “appreciating it more”. That’s just what you say when you’re a have-not. Give me the warmth and leave the cold to the Canadians. There are other bloggers out there that I follow who fall on each end of the spectrum, specifically in Michigan and Hawaii. I’d guess that Frayed Laces wouldn’t give up Hawaii for anything, while Nitmos could live without the Michigan winter (with respect to training). In fact, I imagine if you asked 100 endurance runners / triathletes, 99 of them would take the amazing year-round weather (and that 1 leftover guy is a liar).

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p style=”text-align:left;”>Anyway, this past Sunday featured an outstanding long run that was to be a kind of pre-test for the National Half Marathon coming up. It went really well, and actually made my decision to sign up for the race harder. I was hoping I’d fall apart and use that as an excuse not to do National. Instead, I hit a 7:31 pace for 11.5 miles, not far from the goal race pace. Ugh, jerk. So now I’m left wondering if I can take the results of that awesome run and shift them 2 weeks onto race day, or if I should just forget it anyway. I’ll put up a poll in my next post for you, my lone reader, and see what you think.