Score 4!

Today's Post is totally inspi(red) by my new favorite person Kristi.

Warning: Reading her Marathon Story could possibly make you cry, inspire you, cause you to exceed your own expectations of yourself, and embarrass yourself in public. Here is the link to her Amazing Marathon Recap!

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So today I was reading my feeds and I read about a new friend on Marathon Mommies , hopefully you checked out her story because it is very inspiring. Anyway, I knew that I had to do a long run today, but of course I was dreading it and nervous and putting it off. After reading Kristi's blog and feeling apart of her success, I knew that I had to get out there and work towards my goal.

My Goal: To Follow Through Running the Thanksgiving Day Race that I entered myself in and actually Run it!

So far my training has not be ideal and I've been pretty nervous for the Race. Let's be honest, the race is only 4 miles. At one point in my life this would have been an everyday run...but not now. Running Four miles to me feels like ETERNITY. The most I have ran without stopping is 1.5 miles. There was one day that I thought I ran 2.5 without stopping, but then I traced my run in my car and I was way off. Anyway, after being inspired by Kristi I decided that I would push myself to run the loop around Jensen Grove twice. I got changed, grabbed my ipod at drove over to the Loop.

Starting out was not ideal. I noticed that the wind was insane and that I only had one little sliver of battery life left on my ipod. I started dreading the run. I warmed up with a 1 mile brisk walk and started justifying why today might not be the day to run the loop twice. The ipod was holding up and I started listening to some good tunes. When I was warm I started running. At the time I didn't think anything about my starting point until half way around the loop when I was trying to see how far I had run. I was looking for the stinky outhouse. Gross! For the rest of the run all I could envision for my big finish was the stink public outhouse. Anyway, I just kept putting one foot in front of the other and was almost half way when I took a look at the mileage sign for the loop. Wow, one time around the loop was 1.8 miles. I was trying to run it twice. I hadn't planned on running 3.6 miles and quite frankly didn't even feel like it was possible. Again I started thinking of the triumphs that Kristi felt as she overcame her obstacles and I somehow kept going. As I ran past a couple walking their dog, they waved to me and said, "Wow, you are cruising." I loosely translated this message into "Erin, you are a MACHINE" and gained confidence and drive as I passed the stinky out house for the first time.

The wind was really blowing hard. As I ran North it was behind me and pushing me, but as I ran South on the loop, there was a good 0.8 mile stretch that the wind was pushing against me so hard that I couldn't even hear the tunes on my ipod. This made me feel like a bulldozer and a really tuff chick and I started thinking to myself, "I am going to do this!"

As I slowly approached my Finish Line the sun had set and the Outhouse was glowing from about 0.5 mile away. It looked like a lighthouse and again I chuckled to myself that I was running towards a bathroom. When I reached the outhouse, my big finish line, I realized that I was about 0.5 miles away from my car and without thinking decided to give myself one final push and keep going. As I got closer to my car I started thinking of Kristi running down the streets lined with people giving her high fives. I may or may not have lifted my right hand and pretended to give a supporter a high five! And then I may or may not have proceeded to use both hands to blow a huge kiss to all my fans, followed by the Rocky Run with both my arms raised above my head as I reached my car. Wow! 4 miles without stopping once. I couldn't believe it...I was so impressed with myself, I did it...and then to my horror, I heard a few snickers and right by my runway as I may or may not have been doing really embarrassing things, I saw a group of young skater boys laughing at me. Oh well...it's about the fame...not the shame!

So here is my picture (Thanks for the idea Kristi) showing off my mileage. I know it isn't much to you runners out there. But for me, today was a huge success. Thanks Kristi.

 

Please also notice that I had dinner simmering in a pot behind me. Two new accomplishments today. I ran 4 miles without stopping and I cooked dinner. REAL DINNER!

Peace Out!