motivation

i'm loosely following a running training plan which suggests that i do "long runs" one day each week. this past wednesday, dude came home + suggested that we do a long run this saturday + he mapped out a four mile course for us - my longest previous distance is about 3.5 miles, but on different terrain {flat, less hills}. so, all this week, i was dreading looking forward to saturday. i did a few 3+ mile runs by myself over the course of the week, so i felt pretty prepared.

then comes saturday morning.

my morning started off pretty dreadful...i wasn't in a good mood - at all. our initial plan was that we were going to get up + start our run at about 8am because dude had plans to play football + i usually walk kennesaw mountain saturday mornings with a girlfriend of mine. well....we ended up waking up late, so we postponed the run until later that afternoon, which i was 100% cool with, lol.

then comes saturday afternnon.

i was still in a stinker of a mood, but we decided to run any way. we head out on the course, armed with our respective ipods + dude with his "i wish another dog would run after us" stick since we're apparently prone to having dogs chase us while running. it's happened. twice.

the run started off pretty good. i ran in my vibrams, so i felt extremely light on my feet. well, fast forward to the last mile of the run...i was starting to feel a little tired + had serious thoughts of just "walking it in" once we made it back to the entrance of our subdivision which is about 0.2 miles from our house. i started to slow a bit, so at that point, dude ended up being in front of me - he usually runs behind me so that i can run at my own pace. as i'm starting to run out of gas, i look up + see this running in front of me...

all i could think of was "boy, hush" how i really wasn't 'giving it my best' at that point, so i got a second wind + put just a little more pep in my step. when we finally reached our driveway...i was pretty excited! honestly, no one would have been able to sense my glee because i could hardly breathe was stretching + cooling down, but believe me i was stocked. then, hubby gives me a big hug + tells me that he was proud of me. <--- the best part of it all ;)

next saturday is our 5k, so i'll be taking it easy on long runs this week.

ciao!