Kicking and Screaming

 

When I awoke on Saturday morning to embarck on my group run, I practically had to be bulldozed from my bed by J. Alabama. I think there were tears and possibly curse words involved. I did not want to go.

And honestly, I’m not quite sure why.

I knew it was going to be cold, but I think I’m mentally over that.

And I knew it was going to be hard. 4 miles was on the schedule (which would mark my longest run to date post marathon).

Maybe I was just plain tired.

I will never really know why I awoke in such a mood, but I felt like a little kid who was kicking and screaming and pouting. In hopes that I would get my way.

Nope. I did not get my way. J. Alabama somehow convinced me to get my butt out of bed and onto my running group. Gah!

The first half a mile of the run was flat, but still had a small covering of ice. Not as bad as last week, but I was still being cautious with everystep.

My pictures look like it was snowing, but actually it was misting ever so slightly. It would have felt amazing had it been a hot summer morning.

Once I hit the half mile point the uphill battle began. I trodded along at a decent pace until I could not catch my breath anymore. Somewhere about half up the mountain I did a little walk/run combo. I would run for four minutes, then walk for one minute.

I haven’t done any hill training since the marathon, so this felt extremely hard.

I was overjoyed when I reached the 2 mile marker and was about to head back downhill when I met a new friend.

She was a marathoner herself, and explained to me that this particular half-marathon (Robie Creek) was harder than any marathon she had ever run.

That actually crushed my soul a little to hear that, but didn’t scare me off.

I already know I can do anything.

So I just took her words as a challenge to push myself.

I finished my 4 mile run in around 51 minutes. The hill and ice slowed me down alot, but I’m not really worried about my time.

This half -marathon is another one of those bucket list things that I just want to say I did.

So again, I was super to happy to say that I forced myself out of bed in the early cold morning on Saturday and ran my little heart out.

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And if you have a second –head on over to Run Courtney Run as Courtney has featured me as her Runner of The Week on her blog!

Happy Monday Friends!