Owie Post-Maui

Today was a long run up in Woodside, along Edgewood Road. The Team met at 7am to do a 10-mile run, and the ensuing experience was pretty rough...
There were a few lessons I learned today, the first of which should have been obvious at 6:45 this morning: I did not get enough sleep this week. There is a reason the training schedule makes you rest on Fridays, and I should have taken that a little more seriously! It is incredible how quickly your energy runs out after your breakfast fuel has been utilized.

Secondly, I did not drink enough water the day before, leaving me running through the woods, wishing I could get my legs to go helter-skelter-ing up and down the hilly dirt trail. My sympathies go out to Sisyphus and his rock. My legs felt like lead, and on the run out, I kept thinking "...these downhills are still going to be here on the way back...but they're going to be uphills...!"

Lastly, and though this may seem minute, I didn't consider the chafing that would happen over the course of a two-point-five hour run. Hence, I am currently sporting some slightly uncomfortable spots where the skin has rubbed off...marathon battle scars, I call 'em.

However, I think alot of this past week's training was more intense than the "training" I did in Maui. Which also taught me that taking more than two days off from your training can work degenerative wonders on your aerobic system! I've made a mental note to try my hardest during these coming weeks to push myself little by little, to put some metaphorical money in the physical bank, so that by marathon time, I'll be absolutely ready to face those long 26 miles.

The best part of the run today was seeing the honorees, Doug and Roger, cheering us on through the morning. At mile 8, I will admit, I had second-thoughts about the mileage...and the race itself. I thought "Well, I've still got time to train, I don't have to finish this 10 mile today..." -but I knew that if I didn't do the last 2 miles, I would somehow have been disappointed in myself, that I would be starting down the path to quitting. Then I saw Doug and Roger smiling at us; they had been out here all morning, despite their condition, and so I thought "It's only 2 more miles...I can do 2 more miles."
And that seemed to give me all the energy I needed to finish.

It felt great, getting to the end of those miles, knowing that I finished it, that I didn't quit, and so we went out to celebrate with a huge breakfast.
...and I believe I learned the greatest lesson of the day during the meal at the Woodside Bakery:
Run to eat!