8 Miles turned into 10 Miles!

I knew I was due for a "longish" run, so on Saturday morning I planned to tackle 8 miles. Now, I know a lot of you can eat 8 miles for breakfast, but to me, 8 miles seemed daunting. To make matters worse, the most HORRIBLE thing happened right before my run. MY MP3 PLAYER DIED.

DOOM.

Needless to say, I was super bummed and angry to know I was going to have to run for over an hour without any podcasts to listen to. I tried to harness that anger and use at as energy for my run.

Fueled on iced coffee and a bowl of 1/2 Special K Protein and 1/2 Oats & O's, I slid into my brand new green shorts (Paul picked the color. I thought it would give me good luck.) and headed out the door.

The plan was to do neighborhood loop dee doops. I had a big 4 mile loop I was going to start with, and then I was just going to eff around for the last half of the run... wherever my legs took me. The weather was warm and the sun was shining, but it was definitely not as scorching as some of my runs last week. The bottom line is, I couldn't complain about the weather.

Since I didn't have any podcasts, I tried to make the miles go by faster by brainstorming ideas for the new school year. The goal was to have one good idea for every 1/2 mile. By the end of my run, I would have sixteen good ideas for my classroom! Well, the good ideas only lasted for about three miles. Then I started to think of blog ideas. Then, as my legs turned to jelly, my brain turned to jelly and I just let my mind wander all over the place! But the miles ticked off faster than I had anticipated.

I was feeling hot and tired toward the end, but I started to think of other runners for inspiration! Like Heather, who was going to be doing her weekend long run in the pouring rain... and she was likely doing double the miles I was doing! If she could do that, I could do 8 miles in the sunshine. Then I thought of Cheryl, who just did a double run the other day- 6.5 miles in the morning and then 7 in the afternoon. And I thought of Kristina, who is doing a training plan that involves back to back long runs on the weekends. Then there is Ali, who is about to start training in the Florida humidity for her second full marathon. All these strong women inspired me to just freaking keep going. THANK YOU, FRIENDS!

As I neared the end of my run, I ran loops around my house. Each time I passed, I could hear Paul practicing piano. I am giving him lessons, and he practices a lot more than my other students! He will sit down and play for an hour at a time. I am really proud of him. It was "homey" to run by and hear him playing.

Finally, my 8 miles were done. I grabbed the water on my front stoop and started cooling down with a walk. But after a block of walking I did something crazy. I decided to keep going and try to make it to 10 miles! What's two more miles anyway? My legs were tired, but since my knee felt strong I knew I could do it. And how cool will it be to feel SUPER DUPER AWESOME for having completed a double digit run!?

So off I went! "I can do anything for 17 more minutes," I said to myself. "Hey, now I won't feel bad for not mowing the lawn today!"

After my Garmin dinged my 10th mile, I let out a loud "WOOP!" and cooled down with a half mile walk. I definitely felt like I ran 10 miles. It was a that good tired/tight feeling you get after you push yourself. 

Here are the stats of my run!

Distance: 10 miles

Duration: 1:25:00

Average Pace:

Splits: 9:05,  9:03, 8:57, 8:34, 8:27, 8:16, 8:16, 7:58, 8:22, 8:09 

(You can tell I thought I was going to be done after Mile 8- it was my fastest!)

I couldn't wait to run inside and interrupt Paul's piano practicing to tell him the mileage I completed! he took a celebratory photo of me. You can tell I am pretty damn pleased with myself!

"Do I smell like I ran ten miles?" I asked him.

"I'm not smelling you!" he replied.

As long as I am properly fueled for a run, my tummy is usually not hungry immediately after. So besides drinking about 16oz of plain water during my 1/2 mile walking cool down, I also had a tall glass of 1/2 water and 1/2 cran-raz juice. My body craved sugarrrrr!

Then I jumped in the shower. As soon as the water hit my lower back, I realized my cute green shorts had chaffed me! Now I have a chaffing mark as a tramp stamp. That's okay green shorts, I forgive you.

I stretched for 20 minutes and my legs didn't feel too worse for wear. I definitely felt like I ran longer than usual, but I wasn't wrecked. That was good! My knee felt strong the entire run and my hip only felt tight if I thrust my hip out and bent my body all the way to the left... in other words, I had to try pretty hard to make it feel tight. So that's not perfect but it is good!

10 Miles is the longest I have run since March 14th! FIVE FREAKING MONTHS! Can you believe it!?

I am glad my mojo decided to visit me on Saturday afternoon. I had that "long run feeling" for the rest of the day, and it felt great! After stretching, I immediately sat down and typed up this blog post while I was still high on endorphins! Then... it was time to lay on the couch and refuel with homemade salsa and chips. Oh, and Jeopardy!

Operation RUN MORE is going pretty well.

**Don't worry, once I get used to running a couple double digit runs I won't do such a HUGE recap! Sorry, I was just a little excited for this one!**

What's the longest amount of time you have gone without a double digit run?

Can you remember the last time you had to do a long run with no podcasts/music?

Do you ever add miles to the end of a run because you felt you could safely go farther?