Personal Victory

This weekend had me looking at a 9 mile run on Saturday and a rest day on Sunday. The rest day was going to be no problem but 9 miles is as far as I have ever run in my life. I ran 8 miles last Saturday and had a few things I wanted to change this weekend. Friday afternoon my wife sends me an email asking if I wanted to go visit her parents down at the lake. I said that I did not want to go and we had a lot to do to get ready for Sammy to go back to school. She later called me and informed me that we were going to the lake. I don't know why she even gets input from me sometimes. All I could think about was how this was going to mess up my run. The lake was very hilly and I have failed badly trying to run those streets before.

I got on Mapmyrun.com and started mapping a run. I mapped a run that would take me to the far end of the neighborhhod and back that would be around 9.7 miles. I figured that I could run 9 of it and walk the rest as a cool down. Saturday morning comes and I have a hard time getting up and going. I can’t find any peanut butter for my usual meal and I end up eating a few cookies and drinking half a bottle of PowerAde. I walk out the door and run about a minute up to the first hill and my mind starts telling me to just go home. I stop, turn around and walk about 3 steps and then talk myself back in to running. I’ll just run for a while I say and off I go. Every hill sucked but I just lowered my head and ran. Because I was running out in the country on some small roads I did get some shade but I also “met” a few dogs. One blood hound actually bumped my legs before I even saw him. Most dogs just ran to the road and barked, I said "good boy" and "go home" and I kept on running.

Since I started running again and following this training plan my times have slowly gotten slower and slower. I can run further but slow. With the hills I figured that I would run for about 90 minutes and then I could walk the rest. I hit the halfway point faster then I expected and did not have to walk at all. I was not feeling great but I was not feeling bad. I was just running and that is what I did all the way back home. As I got closer and closer I kept checking my watch because I was way faster then I should be. I got back to the house in under 1:17 (under 8 minute miles). All I could figure was that I must have not been as far as I had thought so I kept on running. I ran loops up and down the street in front of my in-laws house. I figured I would just keep running until I ran for 90 minutes and that is what I did. On about my second loop I could see my son and wife come out of the house, they were coming to look for me. My wife thinks I’m going to drop dead.

I’m at work this morning and mapped the route again, it says 9.7miles! Add the additional 14 minutes and no telling how far I ran. I feel great today not because I ran further then I thought or faster then I expected but because I ran. I wanted to go back to bed but I just put my head down and ran.

How about those USA swimmers last night? I was screaming at the TV. I love the Olympics and get pumped when USA wins.