Trotting along without a care in the world

Yesterday was a long day in the office, when I got home I was mentally drained and had missed running club and was too hungry to go out and run first so I made the sensible choice to eat and get an early night. I set my alarm to but up early so I could run in the morning instead, laying out my kit in preperation.
I had a vague route in mind and decided to run without checking my garmin for my stats but just to enjoy the run instead... this lasted for almost two miles when I looked down and was in fact pretty disappointed as I thought I had gone further but then strangely (the inner metronome again) I only looked every mile, exactly 1 mile between glances - and before you say it I don't have the volume on so I wasn't given an audio heads up to check.
I trotted along happily in my own world and listening to music - another unusual trait for me - and just kept going, now aware of distance but I removed pacing from my screen.
I arrived at my front door bang on 8 miles and checked my pace, 9:13 min/miles which I was please with as it had felt quite a comfortable pace. I was also please to have got a long run in finally, the last proper long run has to be the Nottingham Half over a month ago (can't really count my stop start at the Sittingbourne 10).
I am generally of the view that when going for a run you should have a traget in mind, whether it be time or distance and for me it is usually a combination of both. But there is a lot to be said for just getting out and going for a run. Today's run was a good run.