A Milestone

I haven't shared much of my progress of my half marathon training on my blog, and that is a shame really, but yesterday I ran 10 miles and that needs to be documented!!

I never in a million-billion years thought I would run 10 miles. Heck, I never thought I would make it to 4. In fact I hated running. Ok that isn't entirely true but it wasn't my favorite thing unless I was running a race. But I never had a desire to run longer than 3 miles.

One day I was talking to Sams dad about running and he told me I should run a half marathon. I brushed it off, but kept thinking about it. My sister then told me I should run one with her in the fall. I kept considering it, and then once again, my father in law pushed it. He challenged me to do it, and i decided, why the heck not? So I did.

It hasn't been easy for sure. The only time I can go running is at 6am. Getting out of bed is rough, especially now that I have a job and naps are a thing of the past, and yet somehow I have had the willpower to do it. And I feel excellent for the most part....except I walk around like I am an old woman most of the time thanks to developing plantar faciitis.

I ran into a setback about 3 weeks ago. I started my job and got sick all in the same week. My running was put on hold for a bit, and even when I started feeling better, I didn't want to do it anymore. Getting out was rough. Last Saturday I had a 9 mile run, after skipping a bunch of running plus my first nine miler and it was ROUGH!! I was in pain when I was done. I had to call Sam, in tears, to come pick me up. I couldn't walk home. I wondered how on earth I was going to keep going with my training. I wanted to give up. Lucky for me, my husband wouldn't hear of it.

I knew one thing for sure: I needed new shoes. So, I splurged and got some new ones. I thought I was crazy 'breaking them in' on a 10 mile run, but my other ones hurt me too bad. They came Friday and i wore them around all day and they were heaven to my feet.

So, Saturday morning my alarm went off at 6am....and then again at6:30 because I just couldn't do 6. I got up, put on my clothes, laced up my shoes, ate an egg and a cliff bar, grabbed my water bottle and went out. The first two miles were rough. My shins were on fire! But then something amazing happened: it was really sunny, and it started to sprinkle, and it was beautiful. That right there changed my attitude. I stopped paying attention to my running and the miles and started singing along to my songs and looking at the beauty around me. At about mile 7 it started to rain really hard. I was running through the Jordan River Parkway, and those of you that live in Utah know how pretty it is there. The smells of the rain and wet foliage were heavenly! And boy, that breeze felt great! And I was feeling amazing!!

At mile 8.5 I was starting to feel down again, but a cute old guy rolled down his window and yelled some words of encouragement with a huge smile (I think he yelled I was doing great) and that got me home.

I was so happy all day Saturday. I definitely get the runners high everyone talks about. I felt so good and so accomplished, I can only imagine how good I will feel after I run the halfsie, as I have liked to call it. I ran 10 miles. TEN MILES!! Wowzer!! New running Caitlin, you can do anything.