This is it with the excuses!

The start of a new month meant that I would really really stop with any excuses I had since January felt like it was 40 days long.  So, I woke up the morning of February 1^st just singing to myself “This is it” (don’t know the title of the song or who even sang it) although I wasn’t feeling too well and didn’t know if I was catching a cold or I was just exhausted.  With this weather, anybody can come up with an excuse not to do anything.  I felt like a warrior and there was nothing going to stop me this time. Wednesday nights mean it’s a training night.  Our training schedule had hills and we were scheduled to do 5 hill repeats that night.  We were going to a new location (hill) and there is always something that makes me anxious about either the new location or the hill and how steep this hill will be during the run. 

Hills never disappear

When we got to the bottom of the hill, I didn’t know what to think since it was steep on our way down. For a moment, I felt that I was going to have to dig deep since that was going to be tough to conquer.  Little did I know that we were going to run up a different hill and I should check my attitude before giving up so easily. I used to be so hard on myself about my pace and realized that all that matters is that am out there doing something.  Everybody was done with their 5^th hill repeat while I was finishing my 4^th and had to go for the last repeat while they waited.  A part of me felt like giving up but thought oh no I woke up singing “this is it” so off I went. The amazing thing about teamwork is that some of the runners joined me to give me support while I finished my 5^th repeat while others made sure I was hydrating since I wasn’t feeling well.  When our fierce leader talks about no runner left behind this is confirmation of great teamwork thanks guys.

My Saturday schedule had 8 miles with temperatures in the low 20s and gosh was it cold.  I wasn’t sure how I was going to mentally prepare for the run and I did not want to get overwhelmed with how and when I will finish.  I decided I would deal with the mileage in quarters and after I finish the first 2 miles then I can deal with the next two miles and so on and so forth. 

Where are the leaves?

The first two miles were just tough because I was freezing and I didn’t think I would ever warm up.  By mile 3 I was already warm and sweating except for my fingers even with my thick gloves.  Hmm I guess I need to buy hand warmers for the next run. I decided to count how many people I would meet while out on the trail as a distraction before negativity set in.  I believe I counted about 7 people by the time I got to mile 4.  At mile 4, my fingers were warm except for my ring finger on the right hand. I started thinking oh no what is going on, has my finger frozen, is this frost bite, has it fallen off, so where will I put my ring when my future husband proposes, wait that is put on the left hand, OMG should I take my glove off and lay down and pass out or call for help.…LOL.  Such thoughts made that mile go by pretty fast and by the end of it all my fingers were warm.  Talk about being so dramatic.

All by myself ...

From miles 5 and 6 all I could think about was why am I doing this until when I began to see familiar faces on the trail.  I met up with the runners from the program that were doing 6 miles on their way out while I was heading back to my start point.  Seeing familiar faces made those miles go by fast.  I don’t think I really remember my last two miles all I had in my head was when the heck does this end?  I used both the map my run app and my garmin to measure out my mileage and they were not telling me the same mileage so I opted to select the one that had higher mileage. It helps to accept some of the alternate facts about the mileage when it is convenient for you right?  My garmin measured 9.3 miles for some strange reason and my phone said 8.16 miles so my conclusion was I did 8.5 miles….LOL.  A bear claw pastry from Panera was my reward after the run..opps what happened to clean eating and the theme song at the start of the week??  Oh well on to the next week.