True Grit Running This Week
Sunday, October 18, 2009 at 05:05PM 
Today was a day of sheer grit and determination. Seven weeks away from the Santa Barbara Marathon and I felt that if I didn't get a long run in, I would not be able to run the marathon.
The last 4 weeks were supposed to be 60 mile weeks for me, but between getting the flu and slowly recovering from it, my training has been way off the plan. In fact, last week's total mileage of 16.5 was the lowest in recent memory for me. Not good.
This week and today, I STILL don't feel quite right. I'm not sick. But my body is still recovering from being sick. Still coughing in the morning and sluggish and tired overall. Wasn't able to wake up earlier than 6:45 a.m. this week. So to make up for the short morning runs I doubled up on Tues, Wed and Thurs. Not fun! But I felt I HAD to get my mileage where it needed to be.
It was nice, cool and rainy up through Wed. Then Thurs through Sat it was unseasonably hot out. Between the heat and my inability to drag myself out of bed early, I was worried about my critical long run today.
Good luck! It was cool out when I started my run at 8 a.m. today! And the temp didn't rise higher than about 75 degrees.
The goal: Run for 2 1/2 hours. Pace irrelevant. Normally I run around a 7 min pace but given the way my body has felt, I'll settle for anything! Just need to knock this run out.
But 20 minutes into the run, physically I felt like stopping. Just didn't have anything in the tank. But I swallowed my pride and ignored my dead legs...and resolved to KEEP RUNNING, even if it felt like I was walking!
Two hours, 26 minutes later, I was done. I was not surprised this afternoon when, using MapMyRun.com found out I ran 16.3 miles today. That equates to about a 9 minute per mile pace. I slogged my way through this run. But I did it! It didn't feel good today. But mentally it was necessary that I was able to PUSH myself into making it happen!
So for those of you who, like me, don't feel up to a particular run...change your mental outlook, tweak your goal and MAKE IT HAPPEN!
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