Well, Saturday was my first long run since I got injured on the last weekend in July. I haven't even tracked how far any of my runs have been up until now. Needless to say, I was more than a little nervous about doing this run. Dr. Roget said I was ready. Charlie said I was ready. But my mind kept saying "But you haven't run near that distance in sooooo long!" To top it off, out of no where, my leg was hurting Friday a little bit, but that was more than it had hurt in weeks.
I decided going into this run that I would not pay attention to my time. I was just going to do my 4 or 5 minutes of running and 1 minute of walking and not get distracted by the fact that I was the slowest runner out there. This is so much easier said than done! After all, I have to pay attention to the time so that I know when to stop running and start walking. And I really do need to do this because I'm almost out of the woods and I don't want to re-injure my leg.
I've always believed that running is 95% mental and I believe that now more than ever. I got out on the road in Knight's Ferry and my leg felt great, which is awesome! It's exactly what I hoped for, but then I kept having to remind myself that, yes, I do still need to stop and take my walk intervals even though I was feeling really good. Again, God was really teaching me humility through this experience. It takes humility to put aside my pride and just go slow, not worrying that I was literally the last runner out there. Because I am a pretty social person, it took a lot of restraint for me to not speed up just a little so that I was at least near other people.
I was running alone which I discovered was really not all that bad. My life gets pretty busy and hectic these days and a little time alone with my thoughts was actually pretty nice. I finished my run and felt great. My legs were a little stiff the next day, but there wasn't any extra soreness. Now that I've finished this run, I feel a lot better about the prospect of being able to do the race. I have decided not to rule out the full marathon. Charlie, my coach, says I can do it, probably because the walking intervals really help keep my legs from feeling like they are dragging. I know that I can do the half marathon, but that's not what I set out to do. I am still aiming at the full marathon which will be really tough, but it will feel great if I can do it. I'm still training and feeling good about it. And that makes me excited!
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