Less whining, more running!

Thank you all for being indulgently understanding of last week’s whine about how hard my long runs have gotten. I particularly appreciated DG’s comment (DG, I assume I know who you are! DG is currently training for her first ultra, so she knows what she’s talking about when it comes to running long!) where she told me: “Remember to trust your training come race day! So the 19 miler was hard. That’s ok. You finished. Your body internalized what it needed from that distance. Even though you weren’t skipping in delight for the last few miles, your training is sound.”

I’ve read over and over again that not every run can be a “good run.” We all have days when we feel like we could go forever and days when three miles feels like an insurmountable obstacle.  God forbid, but marathon day might be one of those days. The only thing I can know about marathon day is that it will be a major test of my ability to be mentally tough and that I will be running 26.2 miles on a specified course through London, five miles further than I’ve ever run before in my life. I don’t know what the weather will be like, I don’t know how my tummy will feel, I don’t know what I’m going to wear (but I’m working on that), I don’t know if I’ll be able to find my friends in the crowd (but I hope I will!), I don’t know if I’ll be overtaken by someone dressed as a rhino or a camel (…just hope that I can outrun the daleks). There are SO many unknowns, but on every single run that I do, I can practice being tough and I should take comfort in the fact that, no matter how rough I felt, I KEPT going. Because that’s what I’m going to have to do on April 22. And that’s what I’m going to internalize from my 19 mile run.