It's been a while since I've felted splits on my arm but I'm not above it. Saturday night I wrote twenty-one kilometer splits on my right arm so that I wouldn't have to think about it on Sunday morning and I fell asleep staring at the scrolled digits, imagining what each kilometer would feel like the next day.

And yes, I did wake up with pen marks on my face.

After only two full months of consistent training, I've finished my first race and shaved six minutes off of last year's time with a 1:34:18. Not at all "fast" compared to most folks but I'm getting there. I just recently fell in love with running again.

Having the splits written on my arm relaxed me a bit. It was easier to take one kilometer at a time as I do tend to space out during longer runs and focus solely on the pain or boredom. With no math to do in my head and no stress of "am I too slow?", I felt like I had a coach running beside me as I ran nearly 45 seconds faster than I was planning.

Lots of long slow distance coming my way. Today I'll rest. Tomorrow I'm off to Amsterdam for three days and hope to find some good courses while I'm there.