Another Day Sets

Another day sets, and so does another run. Just as I finished 7 miles, the last of the sun faded in to night. It was a new experience to run in the evening. The world seems to be a completely different place. At the start of my run, I found myself feeling groggy from the work day, instead of just waking up. I partially blame my fog from taking 2 Benadryl last night. I was trying to stop the itching on my foot, some bug bite that has persisted for 4 days, but instead ended up knocking myself out for 9 hours. I've been feeling groggy since.

I digress. By mile 3 I started to perk up. That's also the point I started to run past the yummy Italian restaurants. Those smells are non-existent at 6:00 a.m.; usually I only smell donut shops and bakeries. But at 8:00 p.m., I could smell the pasta of Del Pietro's, pizza of Imos and Pizza Hut, and the breadsticks of Fazolis. My mouth started watering. Then I ran past Dairy Queen; that was a happening place on a summer night. No smells from DQ but I had fond memories of the ice cream cake from 2 weeks ago. Smelling these smells made me soooo hungry, probably because I had not yet eaten dinner, so I ripped open my raspberry flavored Hammer gel. Definitely not as savory as the smells I encountered but it served its purpose of keeping me nourished during the run. I also knew my fiance would be grilling me up some chicken to have when I got home :)

I also ran past the library. It was neat to see people huddled up in a book or a cubby. I wonder what interesting things they were reading....Target was super busy. There was a lot more to watch at this time of day, but I also had to watch the traffic more. People in the evening are definitely not as conscious as morning drivers. Plus it was dusk; I wanted to make sure drivers could see me. Although at my first group run someone told me to jump up if a car is coming towards you. This person had been 'hit' by cars 5 times, or something crazy like that, so I took his words of wisdom seriously.

I also ran past a bridal shop- I'm used to shopping for bridesmaid dresses. If you know me, you know shopping for bridesmaid dresses has lead to migraines. Let's hope the bridal experience doesn't do the same ;)

As I continued on, I started to reflect on my 14 mile run this past Saturday. I was very nervous to tackle this distance- 1. This would be the longest consecutive distance I had ever run, and 2. My stomach was still very upset from all the ethnic food I had on vacation... To make matters worse, I watched the Marathon Course video just before heading out to the group run. Bad idea. It was intimidating to see a sped up video of the course that still lasted 15 minutes.

But thanks to the group runs and support of my pace group with the Fleet Feet training program, the run was smooth. I received the advice to take 2 Imodium before the run, so my tummy settled just in time for the run kickoff. The weather was beautiful and we had a water station at 2 points during the run. I felt so good when I finished; I even took Emma on a walk. Now later in the day my legs started to tighten up and I wanted to take a nap, but that is to be expected. All in all I successfully finished the run physically and mentally. I'll run at least 14 miles many more times in the next few weeks, and every other week I will continue to reach a new personal record for distance. It's a pretty cool feeling to continue to surpass what you know you can do. So why not take on a challenge you aren't sure you can do.

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