Into the double digits we go!

My long runs have officially moved into the double digits! I successfully ran 10 miles this morning! I was actually really nervous for this run. 9 miles last week was rough, so I wasn't sure how I was going to do 10. Plus, my waterboy on a bike/supportive husband was gone on a camping trip, so I was going to be completely on my own. Just like the 9 mile run last week, everything was fine until about the last mile. That's when my legs started to say, "We are done. Please stop making us move."

At that 9 mile mark, I kept thinking about tired my legs were, how badly I wanted to stop, but also how I only had one more mile to go, and that really wasn't that far. I started to feel better knowing that I was almost done, but then all I could think about was how in two weeks (next week is a drop-back week), I have to run 12 miles, and that seems so far!

My mind then wandered to a section I had read in the book The Non-Runner's Marathon Guide for Women: Get Off Your Butt and On With Your Training by Dawn Dais. I love this book. The author is absolutely hilarious and wonderfully sarcastic. I highly recommend it to any woman training for a marathon, half-marathon, or just any length of race that seems impossible for you. Anyway, in one of the chapters she talks about "the moment". She talks about how great the moment when you cross the marathon finish line is, but she also talks about how you shouldn't forget about all of the little moments along the way. She says it's so easy to get caught up in worrying about how long you have to run next time, that you forget about what you are accomplishing along the way. At this point it really hit me that I was about to finish running TEN MILES. Yes, that is less than half of the actual marathon, but a year ago I could barely run two miles. I had never run ten miles in my life until today. That's a pretty amazing feeling.

I guess it's just like Miley Cyrus says, "Ain't about how fast I get there, aint' about what's waiting on the other side, it's the climb." Yep, I just ended by quoting Miley Cyrus. :)

Miles this week: 21 miles
Weeks of training finished: 17 weeks
Total miles of training: 221 miles