Did I mention Jeanne?
Yep, Jeanne. Another non-teammate. Bearing down on us right now; I sit here and listen to the wind blow outside. Scary stuff.
But enough with the hurricanes. It's getting old and sad.
Jeanne did not prevent us from running today - no she did not!! We did it, we ran 9 (NINE!) miles! YEE HAW!! It was fabulous. Wonderful. Beautiful. Fantastic. We did it DESPITE the unpsyching we did on the way to the group practice. The thought of running that far was making us nauseated. The thought of running the course and then running it again was almost more than we could bear! Ugh. What were we thinking?!
And then, standing there in the dark, listening to the course - 3 miles easy, 3 miles 10 secs higher than goal pace, 3 miles easy. Yuck. Half for the half-ers. Okay, right then and there we were ready to switch to the half. What were we thinking??
Like lambs being led to slaughter we stretched. We exchanged glances of misery, my training partner and me. We stuck our tongues out and made "escape hatch" plans in our minds and prayed the powers that be controlling bathroom breaks would go easy on us.
And then we ran. And ran and ran and ran. 2.5 miles down, we stopped for water. We were half through our first stretch and feeling okay!! Ran back and then ... back and forth again. Funny thing - though we were ready to stop, we weren't ready to stop until the time came to stop. And it hit us: NINE MILES. That's a lot. That's marathon training. But more than the physical realization of the power our bodies held we realized: we can do this. A marathon was not out of our grasp. We might just - might just! - do this thing and do it well.
What a day.
It's amazing - you finish running and you are tired. Stretching feels like a glorious long nap that you don't want to wake from. Stretching feels like a hot shower on a cold morning when you don't have to be anywhere anytime soon. It's delicous, it's healthy, and it's a signal to the body that the onslaught has ended. Nothing - nothing! - feels like stretching after a long run.
But the next interesting thing is your awareness of your strength as the day progresses. You feel like one long, lean muscle even if you aren't one. It's like your entire muscular system has snapped to attention and reminds you that you are alive!!
Running is an addiction. No doubt about it.
But enough with the hurricanes. It's getting old and sad.
Jeanne did not prevent us from running today - no she did not!! We did it, we ran 9 (NINE!) miles! YEE HAW!! It was fabulous. Wonderful. Beautiful. Fantastic. We did it DESPITE the unpsyching we did on the way to the group practice. The thought of running that far was making us nauseated. The thought of running the course and then running it again was almost more than we could bear! Ugh. What were we thinking?!
And then, standing there in the dark, listening to the course - 3 miles easy, 3 miles 10 secs higher than goal pace, 3 miles easy. Yuck. Half for the half-ers. Okay, right then and there we were ready to switch to the half. What were we thinking??
Like lambs being led to slaughter we stretched. We exchanged glances of misery, my training partner and me. We stuck our tongues out and made "escape hatch" plans in our minds and prayed the powers that be controlling bathroom breaks would go easy on us.
And then we ran. And ran and ran and ran. 2.5 miles down, we stopped for water. We were half through our first stretch and feeling okay!! Ran back and then ... back and forth again. Funny thing - though we were ready to stop, we weren't ready to stop until the time came to stop. And it hit us: NINE MILES. That's a lot. That's marathon training. But more than the physical realization of the power our bodies held we realized: we can do this. A marathon was not out of our grasp. We might just - might just! - do this thing and do it well.
What a day.
It's amazing - you finish running and you are tired. Stretching feels like a glorious long nap that you don't want to wake from. Stretching feels like a hot shower on a cold morning when you don't have to be anywhere anytime soon. It's delicous, it's healthy, and it's a signal to the body that the onslaught has ended. Nothing - nothing! - feels like stretching after a long run.
But the next interesting thing is your awareness of your strength as the day progresses. You feel like one long, lean muscle even if you aren't one. It's like your entire muscular system has snapped to attention and reminds you that you are alive!!
Running is an addiction. No doubt about it.
posted by Sarah Kathryn at 9/25/2004 09:56:00 PM
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