Day 21 - Officially a habit

As the saying goes 'Do something for 21 days in a row and it becomes a habit'. Today was my 21st time I ran in a row. Which officially means running is now ingrained as a habit for me. I don't really have to push myself out the door anymore in the morning. I just automatically start the steps in my morning routine and I'm off running before I know it. Have you ever tried to start something new or change a bad habit? It's not an easy thing to do but as long as you are strong willed, determined and persevere I believe we can achieve anything.
I was thinking about all the Olympians I watched at the Olympics this winter when I finished my run this morning. My personal goal I set for myself was to do my 6.2km run this morning in under 1 hour. A very obtainable goal seeing that it was just an easy 6 miler I had to do this morning. I have to say, I felt the heart ache I'm sure many Olympians felt when they miss their target by 1 sec or less. As you can see my time for 6.20miles, 9.98km was 1:00:01 just a second over my desired goal. The avg pace was 6:01/km, burned 1346 cal and avg heart rate of 165 bpm. I learned two things from this run today, 1. if you set a goal, track your progress, their is no reason I couldn't of beat my desired run time, I just didn't track my speed through out the run. And 2. Maybe I need to start bringing water with me on my longer runs? I always drink 1 to 2 glasses of water before leaving the house but as my runs get longer I'm going have to bring water along the way to stay hydrated. So I wonder what the maximum amount I should run before I should start bringing water with me is?
All in all it's a great feeling. Being able to fall asleep at night, no tossing and turning just solid sleep and then awake fresh and ready to run. It's been along time since I've slept through the night due to the chronic back pain which I've suffered for the last 11 years. But now that I'm in a routine of exercising and doing three rounds of stretching daily the pain has seemed to have subsided. It's not 100% gone but I can definitely feel an improvement.
So I've reached my first milestone in my time-line for achieving a completed marathon with my dad, it was to 'run 21 days in a row to solidify habit'! DONE, Achieved, checked off...now what? My next question is should I run in the Ottawa Race Weekend 5km next weekend? I'm suppose to run a 3 miler that day anyway. How do races impact the training schedule?
Lots of questions for all you running experts out there, I can't believe how many questions pop up from day to day when writing this blog. I thought for sure I would run out of things to talk about but as usual there is no loss of words for Laura. Love the advice, support and encouragement from all my family, friends and followers. Keep it comin'!