8.6 mile long run!!!

I was able to complete my long run yesterday and it was amazing.  It wasn't the pace that I was looking for but I kind of expected it to be a little slower than normal because I only was able to run less than 5 miles before I even started my long run. Since my half marathon is coming up in 2 months from today, I had to start adding miles to my long runs.  Yesterday was suppose to 8 miles but the weather was too pretty and perfect not to do what I felt that I could do.

Starting out I was going at a good pace. As I approached one of the many hills on my route, I was starting to get intimidated.  I was letting my mind play tricks on me.  Remember me telling you about how I am usually the one that I have to prove wrong?  Well yesterday was definitely one of those days for me. My run started out good up until I hit about 3.5 miles.  This was a little bit before I had almost twisted my ankle last week on the same route so I was being cautious this time around.  I kept telling myself that I had plenty of time to train and that if I turned around now it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

I quickly talked myself out of that one.  I started out with a goal and I intended on finishing it.  So one foot in front of the other, I kept going.  It seemed to take forever for me to reach the halfway point of my run.  When I did, it turned out to be .37 miles over 4 miles.  So I took a break to get something to drink and stretch. Then I started to head back.  This is when it started to get hard for me.

I can laugh about this now but when it happened, that was definitely not the cause.  I was running along listening to my music when I heard a dog bark.  Turned to look and BAM!!  There is this German Shepherd running beside me barking.  Naturally, I screamed and the dog ran.  He would bark and come back again.  I kept screaming GET!!  Considering that at this point I had been running close to 5.5 miles or a little further, the fact that I could speak so clearly shocked me.  I was finally able to get away from the dog.  A friend of mine told me I should get mace.  Believe me that was the exact thought going through my head when I saw that dog.

For the rest of my run, I didn't have any problems with anymore dogs.  Thank goodness!!  I did, however, still continued to struggle.  My legs were tired and burning.  To be honest, I was tired of seeing nothing but rolling hills.  I knew that if I stopped, I would be beating myself up for it for the rest of the day.  Needless to say, during this time I had my slowest mile.  Did I stop running?  No.  I made the choice to keep running and not to give up. Yes it was slow but I never gave up.  The more I think about it the more that I am proud of that one mile because I chose to keep going.

When I hit mile 7.5, I have never in my life been so happy to see that stupid traffic light in my life.  I knew once I saw that light, there were no more rolling hills and I was only a mile or so away from my car!!  As funny as that sounds now, I was exhausted and ready to sit down.  Relax a minute.  This is where I believe I have grown as a runner.  I set a goal of how far I was going to run and when I hit that goal, I realized that I had only .6 miles before I was at my car. So I thought to myself what is .6 more miles and I gave it everything I had. The last couple miles of my run were probably the  best.

Below is the quote that I saw after my run and I think that it has a lot of truth behind it.  There were several times during my run that I wanted to stop and I got quite a workout from pushing myself almost 2 miles past the point when I wanted to stop.

So if you ever feel like stopping and know you should push yourself, do it. It is an amazing feeling that you did something that you almost gave up.  You proved yourself wrong and anyone else that thought you couldn't do it.  Try it next time and share it with someone.  Whether it is commenting on this post, telling a friend or a family member.  I would love to hear about it.  So until next time.