16 miles. Roughly 3 hours and 45 minutes (that’s very roughly).
I actually ran yesterday morning. It’s taken a full day and a half for me to even want to discuss what that was like. So, I apologize for the late blog, but had I done it any earlier, I wouldn’t feel comfortable typing all those curse words. I’m not even sure I knew the full dictionary of bad words until yesterday. Yes, it was THAT bad.
Thankfully, the weather was lovely. I woke up at about 6:30 ate my breakfast got ready to go and headed out the door around 7:15. I ran past “spider alley” from last week and the spiders have lost their brilliant colors. Now, instead of orange and yellow, they are kind of brown and gray. It’s very interesting to me how nature changes even week by week.
After my first 4.5 miles, I had to stop by home to map out a new route. I use www.mapmyrun.com. It’s a great way to find a route without having to drive it. In any case, the main reason for doing this was so I didn’t have to run past those spiders any more. To be quite honest, they scare the sh** out of me. So, anyway, I ran home and forgot to stop my watch the whole time I was at home (which was about 10 minutes…I think). I realized this when I started running again and just kinda gave up on timing this run.
I was absolutely fine until mile 13. Up to this point, 12 miles was the most I had ever run and I actually didn’t have any trouble with that. Let me tell you, at mile 12.1 I was struggling. For 36 hours, I’ve tried to think of a more appropriate way to describe what running 16 miles does to your head. Mind F*** is the only thing that even comes close to it. It is a mind f***. Sorry Grandma!
You know, after 13 miles, it doesn’t even hurt? Really, it doesn’t hurt. It is just your head telling you that your body shouldn’t be doing this. I would find myself walking and think, there is absolutely no difference in the level of pain I feel when I walk instead of run. “NO DIFFERENCE” became my motto. When I stopped paying attention to every movement my body was making, I would walk. When I let my mind wander, my head went into survival mode and that meant walking to conserve energy. I had to tell myself to run and focus on it in order to keep moving quickly. There was seriously no difference in the amount of pain associated with running vs. walking, it was all in my head.
I know I haven’t ever pushed my body like that before. This experience led me to reflect on other times that I was so physically exhausted that my brain went into survival mode. I can’t think of a time that I have even come close. 36 hours later, I can say I’m proud of myself. Yesterday, I was exhausted, mad and ready to quit. Today, I’m kind of excited about pushing myself to complete my 18 mile run next weekend.
I’ve been watching military shows like “2 Weeks in Hell” to prepare myself 🙂
Again, I apologize for not blogging. I didn’t run this week, but I expect to be back in full effect starting tomorrow. I hope everyone has an awesome Labor Day weekend.
Blessings!