2 days - hitting my stride

Yesterday was supposed to be a day of rest for me, but instead I took the day of rest on Tuesday and I ran an easy 3 miles. I am following a marathon training plan, and I'm pretty proud of how strictly I have been following the plan, but every now and then you've got to change the plans. Yesterday (Wednesday) I was just burning with nervous energy, and I could tell my stress level was high, so I really wanted to run. Again, since it was supposed to be a rest day, I was very proud of myself that I did just an easy 3 mile run. In fact, for once, I left the ipod at home and just soaked it all in. My son Aaron ran the first mile with me, and it was awesome just to run with him for that mile (yes, he went slow so that I could stick with him and still have an easy run). Here are my splits for that run:
Mi 1 - 9:10.67
Mi 2 - 9:15.23
Mi 3 - 9:12.34
Total = 27:38.24

Thursdays are always crazy days in my life. Jenn usually has to be in Raleigh on Thursday for her law firm, so I'm fully responsible for the boys - which is cool, but sometimes stressful. Anyway, today I had 5 miles on my training schedule - 1 easy warm up, 3 tempo, 1 easy cool down. I've not had to do a run like this, so it was kind of neat that when I heard my Garmin chirp that I had finished the first mile, I was able to kick it up a notch. I was pleasantly surprised how strong I felt for the 3 miles, yet it was also quite pleasant to hit the final cool down mile.

Mi 1 - 8:36.75
Mi 2 - 8:09.92
Mi 3 - 8:08.95
Mi 4 - 8:13.75
Mi 5 - 9:06.48
Total = 42:15.85

Saturday I'm still undecided about what to do. I have a scheduled 10 mile run, but there is a local 5k that I really would like to run. I ran this race last year, and it was the first race that I had run since I was in high school, and I finished 3rd in my age group! The think that sucks/stinks about the race is that it doesn't begin until 11:00 AM. AND Duke has a home game at 1:30, that we are seriously considering experiencing (pending the rain). But right now I am definitely leaning towards not running the 5k, if for no other reason than I want to run an uninterrupted 10 miles (I'll probably push it to 11).