It’s running season, baby!

Watching the Boston Marathon last Monday got me very excited about the possibility of running and experiencing the Boston Marathon maybe one more time before I hang up my marathoning shoes.

But watching (well, I wasn’t paying attention that early in the morning, so it wasn’t really watching…it was more like looking at all of the social media posts after the fact about) the London Marathon this past weekend got me very excited about my major marathon run this year in Chicago.

The October race means I’ll start training some time in July. Depending on how long of a training session I choose it will be either early or mid-July.

And even though in certain respects July feels pretty far away…in running terms it feels like it’s time to start building up towards that marathon training kickoff.

Besides - I have a couple of 5Ks and the BAA 10K to run between now and then.

In other words, we are in running season.

And the weather is cooperating.

Monday morning was the first day back after spring vacation, and it got into the mid-70s during the day. After a chilly Sunday, the temperatures were pretty ideal for a run around 6am Monday, and I got 4.5 miles in.

That was important because it had been months since I did a run of that length - or any run outdoors - at that time of day.

(My 5K training was mostly indoors on the tread…and some of it was in the morning, some in the afternoon.)

The big difference between this marathon training season and previous marathon trainings is that I’m working out of the house. Right now I have Mondays off, but I will be working Monday through Friday over the summer.

So the time of day isn’t drastically different - I like being up at 5:15 even after I’m done waking up at that time to see everyone off to school, because when I’m running in the summers it helps to beat the heat.

But whereas before I had some flexibility, if I missed that early morning window, to run later in the morning before it gets too hot, now if I miss that window I need to think about running in the afternoon or evening.

So we’ll figure that out as the summer goes on. There are some trails near work that I have my eye on for the inevitable post-work runs that are coming and that I will certainly write about.

But for now, it’s good to leave the house while the sun is still rising and the temperatures aren’t too cold and be back in time to feed the dog her breakfast and see the girls off to school.

It’s early morning running season again, baby!