Today

Today I will:

-  Do something that scares me.
-  Try something new.
-  Be spontaneous.
-  Eat a cookie.

Poppies?

Fields of Poppies?  Is the Wicked Witch up to her tricks Again?

"You're out of the woods / You're out of the dark / You're out of the night..."

I am getting sleepy.

The Voice.

I'm sleeping.  It's 3 AM, 3:14, to be exact.  I feel a nudge in my head.  It's me.

"Get Up"; I tell myself.  "It's perfect running out there, you need to get up so you can do a sunrise run.".

"No", I toss myself to lay on my other side, "I'm going to sleep in".

A voice in my head shouts; "ARE YOU CRAZY?  It'll be all sunny.  You know how you hate the bright sunshine.  ...and I know how much you love a sunrise run."

I shout back; "DAMN you are quite a nag, I'll never get back to sleep now, THANKS!"

So I get up.  Make coffee, grab a Clif® Bar.  Head over to the computer to check e-mail, facebook, and DailyMile.  My weather app says 33° and 8 mph winds, it's going to be a chilly run.  I'll think I'll wait a while, the winds usually calm down near sunrise.

5:30 AM and two cups of coffee later I'm ready, the winds are down to 3 mph, but the temperature is 29, I'm out the door.

Within a half mile I know how this run will go.  I feel great,  my legs are trying to go faster than they should, I've got to calm them down.  At the 5 mile mark I'm still feeling very good, so I turn my 10K plan into a 10 Miler and head across a busy highway that separates the East Montgomery neighborhoods to do a popular 5K route.  Morning is breaking and it is no longer dark, but the sun hasn't risen yet.  The eastern horizon is bright orange and looks like many sunrise/sunset paintings I've seen.

The wind is starting to pick up again, and since I didn't put a second layer on my hands, the way I usually do when it's this cold, my left hand is starting to hurt from the cold.  I head back home to soak my hand in warm water.  I still have one and a quarter mile to go to hit 10.  After the feeling comes back to my hand, I grab some dry gloves, sunglasses and a hat and head back out for a "cool down", even though I was already cold.

This run felt great. Well, the hand was a little uncomfortable, but everything else was good.  It was one of the easiest training workouts of the year.

That voice in my head is usually right. I just wish he wasn't so arrogant.