Long run accomplished!

"Racing teaches us to challenge ourselves. It teaches us to push beyond where we thought we could go. It helps us to find out what we are made of. This is what we do. This is what it's all about." -- Patti Sue Plumer

In the last 2 weeks my running has gone from "I hate this training all the time and having to run such long mileage" with tons of frustrations of running on the treadmill because the weather has been snowy and wet. I even told some people that I may or may not be on strike from signing up for more races and just being able to run when I am able and however far I want, that I am going to spend my summer hiking instead of having to train all the time. But after the weekend I have a little more confidence back and things are looking up in my world. Ok, I'm still not signing up for more races but I'm not mad that I did anymore. That is progress. Over the weekend I finished my last long run for the training session and I think I might be all down hill from here meaning that runs will hopefully be easier and little more fun filled.  

Saturday morning it was a brutal long run associated with many self to self meetings reminding me that this is all possible and at the end all worth it. Lets just say when I thought I could just run straight home instead of the 1/2 mile out of the way loop I had to ask myself how I would feel 15 minutes after I was done. Happy that I accomplished such feats or bummed because I shorted myself a measly 1/2 mile? Running 1/2 mile comes down to 5 minutes really and I had to be reminded that I would only feel guilty all day long for not taking the extra 5 minutes after I had already taken the time to run 12.5. And yes, I was painfully sore all day Saturday, but not sore enough to lay in bed the next morning and miss out on running with the club. So there would be the confidence level. If I can do back to back runs like that I should be fine for this 1/2 marathon coming up. Don't get me wrong, there is discouragement in the fact that I haven't been able to run the track in a month and I haven't done many tempo runs so I'm not setting any records, but I'll be able to finish with a smile on my face. Sometimes, that has to be the goal.