Today felt good!

First of all, I was proud of myself for looking at my calendar last night and noticing that I was scheduled to do this run on Friday, but that my Wednesday work day had a much later start than my Friday work day did, so I decided to move my long run up two days and do it early. To do something before it is due, especially exercising, is a victory for me.

When I woke up this morning and remembered what faced me, it did take me a little while to get out of bed, but luckily, I know that about myself and my schedule always includes time for me to mess around and waste time and get ready to go, so I still was ready to go with plenty of time to spare.

I set my GPS to warn me when I was dropping below 10 minute, 34 second miles, and off I went. I did about a half-mile of warm up before actually starting to count my running, though. It still takes me a while to get up to speed, but it seems like it’s taking less and less time as I continue in my training.

I took my Marathon Playlist music with me and set it to my Mile 18 music so that the nine miles of running would be Miles 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, and 26 on my playlist, so I could get some experience running to those songs in relations to how much distance there still was to cover. Although I felt GREAT while running my first mile, when I imagined that it was actually Mile 18 and that there were 9 to go, I realized I needed to conserve some energy and not run as fast as possible.

The next mile also felt fine, although the songs made me cry pretty forcefully, but I pretty much picked them for that purpose, so it was okay. I discovered that when you’re running AND crying, you hardly notice either, and that’s awesome! The Mile 20 music has some pick-up, so I got some speed up, but again imagined that I had just run 19 miles, not just 2, and that another 7 remained.

I got to where I thought I should be hitting the 4-mile mark and realized I had miscalculated slightly, but that was okay because I had the right picture in my mind of the street, but the wrong name, so I just kept going until I got to the road that I had pictured. Turns out, it probably doesn’t really have a name, it’s right by the freeway, so it may just be a frontage road. In any event, I meant to be on the path that goes by Tempe Town Lake and that’s where I was. I saw bunnies and quail and little birds doing their early morning things as I approached my half-way point.

When I hit 4.55 miles, I just turned around and headed back for home. That was really nice to not have to be watching the distance at all anymore. I just needed to get home and that’s all I really had to worry about.

Mile 22 music is just head-banging heavy-metal stuff that gets me going, so I managed to keep my speed up pretty well. I still tried to imagine I had already run 22 miles, rather than the 5 or so that I had actually done. Mile 23 music is pretty good, too, so I did just keep on truckin, but eventually I was hitting some fatigue.

Then I remembered that I gave myself permission to stop every mile during long runs so I can rest, drink, and let my heart rate come back down a bit. I think I really only stopped about 4-5 times on this whole run, so I wasn’t even using all my breaks, that’s good! But I did take a break around 7 miles or so, knowing that would pretty much need to be my last break for the run.

My speed waned a bit here and there, but my playlist music just keeps getting better and better near the end, so I was able to just zone out and cover some ground in sort of a trance state without a whole lot of actual awareness of the fatigue in my body. I wasn’t completely absent, just in sort of a drifting state of consciousness.

As I got nearer to home, the final few tenths of a mile became harder and harder to accumulate, but eventually I hit my goal and stopped running. After a while of walking, I even began jogging very slowly for part of the ‘walk’ home. I walked the rest of the way, then spent a fair amount of time stretching. It’s been about six hours since my run and I’m feeling very good.

I have hope that this marathon thing will actually work out okay!