Let's run....to the restroom!

Well, I survived my first "long run". I did everything in my power to NOT make it happen, but eventually I ran out of excuses and just did it.

My long run was Sunday so Saturday I went online to try and find a good route to run that was 4 miles.  If I don't already know the route I am running, I like to be able to see it beforehand, or at least pace it out, just so I can visualize where I am at in the grand scheme of the run. I ended up picking an out-and-back route that runs along the river and through one of the many college campuses here.

I had run the route before so I knew it was fairly flat, pretty, and somewhat populated.

Morning of, I slept in an hour longer than I had intended to. When I finally got up (to blue skies instead of rain-YAY!) I started doing my pep talk about how I WAS going to run and I WAS going to like it and I WAS going to be sorry if I didn't.  Finally, I was dressed and in my car.

I had about a 10-minute drive to get to the route and in that 10 minutes, I suddenly really had to go to the bathroom. Hadn't I gone TWICE before leaving the house?? Of course, there were no public restrooms where I ended up so I walked around downtown trying to find a place that was open at 9am on a Sunday morning.  

That place ended up being Starbucks--I used their facilities and left, much to my guilt (my husband said he buys enough coffee from them that I'm ok).

The plus side is that all the walking and stair-climbing I did looking for a restroom was a great warm-up.  I finally began my run and immediately did not feel it.  It was cold and I was tired and I still had 3.95 miles to go?! But, I kept pushing. The first mile was incredibly laboring and I even had a stitch in my side.  I thought maybe it was the difference between treadmill running and road running until my phone chirped in my ear that I had just run a 10-minute mile.  Not fast by any means, but a whole two minutes faster than what I had been doing at the gym getting back into this game.  

I told myself to slow down, enjoy the run, and focus on what I'm doing.

I ended up finishing in 47 minutes, with an average pace of 11:44.  It turned out to be a great run and the weather was beautiful.

Sometimes I ask myself why I run. If going on a long run is such a chore, why do it? I really do enjoy running (maybe not always at the time of the run, but definitely before and after.  And usually during it, too).  I like the soreness afterwards, the feeling of accomplishment, and the feeling of belonging to something.  I run.  I am a runner.  A slow, plodding, incredibly red-faced runner, but a runner nonetheless.