Kicking some asphalt - 8 miles!

Hooray!! An awesome run!

That 10k has been messing with my head in terms of doing more long runs. I thought about the 7 miles ALL DAY yesterday and was trying to stay focused on what I needed to do: get through 7 miles, without walking. Sounds easy enough right? Right.

I got into bed at 8:30 and picked up a book that I've been hanging onto even though it isn't mine.. It's Julie's.. (sorry Jules)... and I happend to have been reading the part that I needed to get through today's run. It talked about all the limits we put on ourselves. Saying "I can't" or feeling a pain or not eating enough, drinking enough, etc. It even talked about GU in the 4 pages that I read last night. Talk about perfect! The author said very clearly that if you GU when you feel like you need to, it's too late.

So with all this in mind, I decided I wanted to be POSITIVE. I was going to go into this run with nothing but GREAT thoughts and KNOWING that I could do it. I CAN DO IT. I also knew that in order to get through the run, I might have to slow my pace more than the others and just focus on taking care of myself so that I could finish without walking (I honestly HATE to walk.)

We got going and it was the three of us that it usually is, Maria, Susan and I. We just kept running. We took a new route that wasn't hilly persay but had hill that were STRAIGHT UP and very short. So, totally doable.

Now, this mother runner is a little bit crazy about whole numbers and not stopping before a clear stopping place. We were running the greenway and were set to turn around at 3.5 miles. Well, you could SEE the road up ahead where the greenway crossed the street and I didn't feel like we should turn around mid-greenway (if that makes any sense AT ALL) and knowing Susan had to do 8 miles, I thought we could just keep going to the CLEAR turn around spot and that way she'd have less to do alone. Right?

At the turn around spot, we were at 3.66. We GUed not long after that and just kept moving. We were chatting and chatting and the time went quickly.

I hit a little bit of a wall around the 5 mile mark (I'm guessing it was 5 miles) but talked myself out of it by telling the girls about the book I had read last night. We just kept on moving.

Finally, I asked Susan what Garmin was saying and we were at 6.83!!!!! Yahoo!! Then we chatted even more until we'd realized we'd gone over our 7 mile mark...we were at 7.15 at this point. And remember? I like whole numbers and stopping at a stopping point and here we were, done with all the hard hills smack dab in the middle of the greenway. We CLEARLY coudn't stop at that point. Right? Right.

So Maria and I decided we felt great, let's go the extra mile with Susan. Susan might need us on that extra mile and WHO wants to do an entire MILE alone after already doing 7? No one! That's what we are all there for! To keep each other going! So we did it!

We ran around the parking lot, circled around and came back. I'll be very honest in saying that around the 7.8 mile mark I was TIRED. I told the girls that and they agreed, which helped. We moved and moved, got to our cars and were at 7.97... so you guessed it, we kept going to right at 8 miles. And luckily for this totally crazy obsessive person, we stopped RIGHT at the gate at the cemetary. So, it was a pretty visible stopping line.

I'm telling ya, it felt GREAT!! When we stopped, I wasn't out of breath at.all. and we all seemed perfectly fine. Love it!

We stretched, looked at our watches and realized how late it was! I was missing out on seeing my men before school and work, so we left quickly. I need my morning hug from my little man!

Now, as I sit here, my hips are a little sore and my legs are feeling the 8 miles. But, I did it! And the best part was spending lots of time with great friends and holding a great conversation for 1.5 hours!

So excited!!