Today was my long run day. My goal was ELEVEN miles. I was really excited to increase my mileage, but also very nervous. I have not run eleven miles since my last half marathon in 2001!! I fortunately had a friend who joined me for half of the run. Wow, does running with a friend make the time go by so much faster.
I planned ahead and charted out eleven miles. I set my timer to 3:30 for running and a 30 second walk. The first 5 miles flew by as my friend and I chatted. I had checked the weather and thought it was suppose to be a beautiful day. During the first 5 miles it sprinkled a few times, but nothing bad. I will say however, the old me would have turned around and headed home. But it was warm out and I was busy talking.
My friend turned off and headed home and I continued. It started raining again. I quickly began to realize why stores sell those super light weight rain jackets. They always seemed like a waste of money to me. But in this rain, I really wished I had one. I continued and the rain stopped. I started laughing to myself and thought I could not believe I was actually out running in the rain and had not turned towards home- I am no longer a fair weather runner. Then, the rain gods decided to get their laugh. The sky opened up and DUMPED rain on me. Buckets of rain. I realized I was very far from home, I did not have my phone, I did not know anyone who lived on the street, so my only choice was to continue. As I am weighing all my options I also realize this was my only chance to do a long run this week. I had to stick with it. The rain gods had to throw one more at me with a few big pops of thunder, and finally they stopped. Ahhh... no more rain.
My plan was to continue at 3:30/30 for as long as I could, but give myself the option to go to 3 min run / 1 min walk if I got too tired. With the rain, I kept it at 3:30/30 to get home faster. During the thunder storm I picked up my pace, which after 9 miles was a mistake. At 9, I did start to look at my watch more, started feeling my back, my IT band, oh and I got really hungry. But I continued. My last half mile was awesome. I had achieved my goal, despite the weather, not having the right gear, and getting tired and hungry. I did it!
I came home dried off, made a bowl of oatmeal and frozen raspberries. Then I discovered a small animal on the back of my head. Not really, but look at what the rain and constant movement of my ponytail did to my HAIR. As a bonus, I got the best arm workout I have had in awhile. It took 45 minutes of combing to get this dread out of my hair.
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