Wellness Wednesday...Ep. 38

My training has been pretty slack the past two weeks...and I definitely felt that when I went out for a long run this past Sunday...so instead of my usual weekly update, I'm going to give the story of my long run, mile by mile...

I woke up, not sure if I even wanted to run, so I relaxed for a little bit until I worked up some motivation (read this story, if that doesn't motivate a runner to go run...I don't know what will), and headed out the door.  My plan called for a 12 mile run, I was thinking I'd be happy with 10.

Mile 0: turned around and went back in the house, forgot something
Mile .03: turned around and went back into the house to get my water bottle full of nuun I had left sitting on the counter
Mile .06: discover water bottle is leaking, complain loudly about this fact to my husband who was running with me at the time
Mile 1: weather is great, legs feel good, this little hill coming up ain't bothering me at all
Mile 2: man, I'm feeling great, the hills aren't feeling that bad
Mile 3: maybe I could go 14 miles (my plan called for a 14 miler the following week) today, this water bottle is starting to bug me, I should fuel soon (I use Honey Stingers during my long runs); how far is it from the end of the one road to the road I'm thinking of turning on to...I'll measure it
Mile 4: this stupid water bottle is driving me nuts, I'm a little slow on the pace today, but not too bad, I think I'm actually going to enjoy running 12 miles
Mile 5: (hubby has swapped out my leaking water bottle for a bottle of water by this point) headed towards the high school, this route is a little hilly, I'll walk a little if I need to
Mile 6: feeling good!!!
Mile 7: it's hot (it was around 55-60 degrees), I can feel the salt on my skin...I'll turn around at 7.35 miles, that'll put me around 11.5 or so when I finish, I can live with that
Mile 7.35: keep going to the stop light, remember it's a lot of downhill on the way back...feeling ok
Mile 8: woohoo!  time to turn around...feeling good, I got this, maybe I can do 13...
Mile 8.7: (hubby brings me another bottle of water, asks me how I'm doing, do I need a ride) I'm feeling good!  no way I need a ride...oh, you are thinking of going and running errands...why don't you wait a half hour just in case
Mile 9: DOWNHILL!  WOOHOO!!
Mile 9.3: this sucks, I should have gotten a ride, I'll try to make it to 10 miles then I'll see how I feel
Mile 10: f*ck this; I'm not running up any more d*mn hills...I'll walk up the hills, then run down them, who cares how f*cking slow I am right now (on a side note, when I develop runner's potty mouth, usually a sign I'm bonking); I'll call at the end of this road for him to come pick me up, every inch of me is covered in salt, I should have run with the busted water bottle, it had the nuun, this d*mn bottle of water is not cutting it
Mile 10.5: wow...only about 2 miles to go...let me try to keep going...man my feet hurt
Mile 11: I'm slow...so slow, I'll never finish the half marathon in the time I want, everyone will be at the finish before me
Mile 11.8: right now I only have about .7 miles left, that's awesome, if I add a little bit I could make this run a 13 miler...my feet say "b*tch please" , probably should just finish
Mile 12.3: start the cooldown, everything hurts, I am so slow, this run sucked
Mile 12.6: done.  finished.  I'm a crappy runner...

So there you go...that's pretty much all that was going through my head on my absolutely terrible (second half at least) 12.6 mile run.  I was so down when I finished.  It took a few hours for me to recover, and today I look at it and go...man, that was some pretty gutsy running that day.  I was defeated mentally, but physically I could still go; my heart took over and I even considered adding a little more to finish with 13 miles (thankfully my brain said no).  Sometimes you need the difficult runs to realize your training has paid off and to trust that you can finish.