Another 10

Today I ran 10 miles... 1 mile warmup, 8 miles at marathon pace (actually, faster than marathon pace), and 1 mile cooldown. My GPS ran out of battery at 1.82 miles, so I was guessing at my pace for most of it, but I did have my regular watch on, and it was a regular route, so I knew where most of the mile markers were. I don't have an exact count for mile 2, but at the time, I was running an 8:50. For miles 3-9, I ran on average an 8:35 pace (wow!), and mile 10 was a little faster than the cooldown, as when I entered my neighborhood, I saw the trash truck, remembered that I didn't put the trash out, so booked it home to beat the truck (time was on my side, as it went down a couple of side streets on its route, whereas I didn't).

Tomorrow, an easy 4, and Saturday (groan), another 20.

So, when I was wrapped up in my head about the dead battery in my GPS, and not knowing exactly what my pace was, blah blah blah, I was shaken back to reality when I saw a homeless person sleepy along the Fairfax County Parkway on the bike trail. It put things WAAAAYYY back into perspective. In the end, I have it very lucky. I have a job, a house, a family, I get to enjoy time to myself (such as running). I have friends, a car (well, 2 cars), and I'm fairly well adjusted. Then I see someone who doesn't have many of these things right there in front of me. Now, I don't live in the city, and I don't see this very often. The sight of this was very jarring to me. I should carry a couple bucks with me when I run, but in this case, I'd be afraid to a) wake this person up; or b) place the money in their shopping cart, as I would not want to upset him/her. But carrying some money would be good anyway, just in case.