Still in the Running

It's a bit of an understatement to say life has been busy. It has been full-out non-stop at home and at work. (Well, truthfully, home has taken a back seat to work. It's Saturday today and I'm about to go back to work for the 2nd time today. ) The biggest blessing is that my daughter is with my in-laws right now. That's the only reason I have the time to pause and post my first blog in two weeks.

I may have paused in my blogging, but I haven't paused in my running. I ran my 2nd solo run last weekend in Huntsville, Alabama (where my in-laws live) running 6 miles in 1 hour and 24 minutes. (a 14:06 pace) The scenery was great. The hills were much bigger than anything in Florida, and the feeling of accomplishment was wonderful. It's SO easy to just go out there and do it when you don't allow the mental back-and-forth of "Should I? But I don't want to..." I don't have time for mental indecision. Life's too busy. Get out there and run, or go do the laundry. (I'd rather run.)

With my dear daughter out of town, I joined the Galloway group for the run this morning. I am so glad I did. All of the reasons I want to run with the group were in effect this morning: motivation to get the run in early in the weekend, people to talk to during the run, running a new route I've never run before. We ran 6.9 miles in 1 hour & 45 minutes. (A 15:11 pace.) I'd never run the Barrancas Bridge before - that was impressive.

The best moment of the run was when a co-runner (who shall remain anonymous) enlightened another member of the group as to why she had fallen behind several blocks before, "I HAD TO PEE!" ... and then she realized she'd left her shirt behind, too. :) At least it got your mind off of the run. :)

A show of my committment came when it was 8 am and I was supposed to be on a conference call for work - but I was still on Pace Blvd just about to turn to Garden Street. Not knowing the planned mileage for the day until we were already on the run, I had thought we would've been done before 8. But I improvised, pulling out my cell phone, dialing the conference call number, and participating in the call while running down Garden Street. (I also went straight to my cubicle after the run and worked for several hours before going home for lunch and a shower. It's a good thing no one is there on Saturdays. I wouldn't have made many friends the way I smelled!)

But this is a great example of what my half-marathon training is all about: setting a goal, achieving it one day at a time, improvising when necessary, and not giving up! I'm not doing it perfectly (only put in one weekday run instead of two for the past two weeks) but I haven't given up either. I was still out there this morning and 7 miles is 7 miles and something to be proud about. Keep running!