Today was the day to prove to myself to myself- either you have it in you or you don't. With the Nike Women's Half Marathon a very close 27 days away I had to see if I could go the distance, literally. My goal was to run 9 miles today. It's a lofty goal for me. The furthest I've ever run at one time is 8 miles. However, that 8 miles was over a year ago and it was very slow and if I remember correctly, extremely difficult. So today was the day - I was dressed to go straight from dropping the kids off at school, no excuses - just go. As always the first mile sucked, the second mile sucked a little more. Then I seemed to get into a rhythm - today I did 6:00/running-2:00/walking for the first 9 miles. It turns out that I mapped my route wrong and went too far - something that never, ever happens. I always underestimate and end up running less than my intended goal. In order to hit my "must do" goal of the day I ended up going out too far which left me at my 9 mile goal, still 2 miles from home.
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| 4weeks to work on speed!!! |
I was feeling good from mile 3-7 and then everything started to hurt: feet, knees, hips, glutes and I was starving - the ducks on the pond were starting to look appetizing and the sport beans I packed weren't cutting it. Finally hit mile 9 and was so happy but still was 2 miles from home so I had to walk home and did it very slow. The last 2 miles took a full 30 minutes and they were the worst of the miles. I was so hopeful someone would drive by and pick me up - no such luck. When I got to my front door my watch said 10.75 miles so I took another lap around the block to make it an official 11 miles.
Now I know a few things:
- I can finish a half marathon;
- I won't be picked up by the sweep bus;
- I can earn that Tiffany necklace;
- I need to work on speed and pick up my pace;
- I can run my own pace, my own race and feel great about it;
- I need a new goal since my goal up until today was to finish before sweep bus picked me up and earn the necklace!
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| What will this year's necklace look like? |
This isn't a feeling I have often but I'm so proud of myself - me, non-athletic-lots-of-lame-excuses-me, ran 11 miles at one time. I walked a lot of it but I was out there for over 2:30 hours pounding the pavement and didn't stop or give up once and all that with no music or no friends to talk to - just me and the millions of dead trees of Bergen County (we have Sandy to blame for the massive amount of dead trees). I DID IT. GO ME.
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| 27 days until THE BIG DAY! |
