"All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity..."

Name that song...

That's right! "Dust in the Wind" by the progressive rock band Kansas (I assume 90% of you knew that). Even my generation should know this 1977 classic. Even if you're not a classic rock listener you probably heard it sung by Will Ferrell in "Old School", at Blue's funeral. It's also been played in a Suburu commercial and episodes of The Simpsons and Family Guy (Peter takes a conteplative walk around Quahog to consider if he should play a round of golf with OJ Simpson or not). It was referenced in "Cowboy" by Kid Rock, one of my personal favorites in high school. And who could forget when it was quoted in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (Ted speaking with Socrates)?

So I took a late run last night; left the house at 10:30 for a five miler. I couldn't believe how hot and humid it still felt. I'm not much of a sweater (maybe perspirer works better?), but last night I really did some serious sweating. My training has been really light lately, so I wanted to make sure I pushed the tempo a little and finished at a faster pace than I started. Running the second half at a faster pace is something I rarely do outside of a race situation, but I did it last night.

Running in that kind of heat and pushing myself that much, despite having eaten 1.5 hamburgers and 3 servings of pasta salad just a few hours before, called for a good fight song. I always have a song in my head while I run. I don't choose it; it comes to me. You'd think a good running song would be "Let's get it Started" by the Black Eyed Peas or "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor. But no, for some reason "Dust in the Wind" was my companion for 5.3 miles last night. Not exactly motivating.

But as I ran through downtown Lebanon at 11 at night, down quiet, dimly lit streets and past creepy old houses, it began to feel oddly appropriate.

I didn't intend for this blog to get cheesy like that. I'm just always surprised at the weird songs that pop into my head during my runs.

My pace last night was about 8:45 out, and 8:35 back. Not too bad. I felt like I was working pretty hard; crazy to think that I ran a half marathon at that pace just a couple months back. The heat slows me down quite a bit. I love summer, but I am definitely looking forward to cool weather running. Back in the spring I could have comfortably run that 5.3 mile route at 8: 10 pace. That's not crazy fast, but it's pretty good for a newbie like me.