A New Personal Record!

Last night I was going over the numbers and I realized I was already 4 miles behind on my running.  You see, I have a goal to run 1000 miles this year, and in order to do that I've chosen to run 3 miles a day.  This gives me a little wiggle room (3 miles x 365 days in the year is 1095) but I don't like getting behind.  It makes me feel like giving up, and that is not an option!  I was well ahead at the end of January with about 100 miles under my belt, but February has just sucked in mileage.  So anyway, I'm doing the math and I turn to my husband and say "I'm four miles behind!  That means I'll need to do seven miles tomorrow; three for the day and four to catch up!"  He laughed.  LAUGHED!  As if I couldn't run 7 miles.  Granted, I never have before, but I did do 6.65 last week and that's pretty close.

With my husband's mocking laugh rattling around in my brain, I headed to the gym with a mission- not only was I going to get caught up, I was going to get AHEAD again! Eight freakin' miles, baby.  I had two hours, the limit on childcare, but I figured I do 6.2 in 1h20, I could bust out another 2 miles in 40 minutes. 

So I start running.  At mile 4 I get a text message from my husband that just says "HI" and I look up and he's sitting at the table in the gym entryway, watching me.  I wave him over and he asks how I'm doing, gives me some encouragement, fills up my water bottle, goes and visits our son in the child care room and then leaves.  It was a nice break, but talking with him has left me out of breath and thrown off my groove.  I'm starting to debate just doing a 10K (6.2) and calling it good.

At 5.38 miles my treadmill decides I've been on long enough (a 60 minute workout and 5 minute "cool down" where I didn't cool down) and shuts down.  I contemplate quitting, but start it back up again.  I realize I only have 2.62 miles until I reach 8 miles.  That is SO doable! 

I hit my 10K at 1h15 minutes exactly, my goal for myself to finish the St. Patty's Day race this year.  YAY! I'm so excited that I once again contemplate quitting as celebration.  NO!  NO!  Bad Cass!  Keep going!

I am pretty tired and starting to get hungry.  I had a 90 calorie granola bar before starting and I'm thinking that wasn't enough.  I tell myself that if I feel really bad, I can still stop at 7 miles and be caught up.  But that 7 miles comes and I just HAVE to finish it out strong.  I once again consider just stopping at 7.5 miles because... well, I'm freaking bored and I have to go get my son out of childcare soon.  But I stuck with it.  I decide to walk the last half mile as my cool down, but at a brisk pace.  Eight miles done.  I did it.  I know in the grand scheme of running, 8 miles isn't much.  There are people out there running that daily, doing marathons and ultramarathons, but they all started somewhere and I bet they all felt pretty damn good the first time they ran eight miles.

*For the record, my husband is actually really supportive.  I think his mocking laugh was really only in my head.  Whatever it takes, right??