Respect the Run: There is nothing that 5.0 hard miles won’t temporarily fix

My  running buddy girlfriend ( I’ve got to  come up with a nickname for her)  and I completed 5.0 hard miles tonight. It was awesome, amazing, cleansing, renewing, freeing, sweaty hard work and it felt  fantabulous.  I’ve been feeling  broken lately, unhinged with stress and worries.  I picked the  training back up a few weeks ago, but haven’t really had a great run.   There were lots of things contributing to this.  Some I was in control of choosing to change, quitting all smoking of any kind, stopping a prescription drug that was helping me lose weight but wrecking havoc on my system and mood, starting a new prescription drug to assist with the smoking cessation, cravings and my general ability to focus and be productive.  Some not in my control, like the overwhelming heat and occasional humidity.   No matter how hard I tried I  just could not get a run going for any length of time, my pace was just awful.  My  legs were fine, it was my heart and breath.  Which led to lots of walking, and if you have ever done any running of any kind you know that walking only begets more walking.   It is best to slow your run pace down to a crawl, rather than walk, if your goal is to keep run vs walk.  My fast walk is  at the pace of  both Babu and running buddies slow run, but once I start it gets harder and harder to make my  body return to a run stance.

Running buddy is faster than me and I always feel bad when I don’t think I’m taking it as seriously as I should or performing as well as I could,  because someone is slowing down to stay with me and I feel like I owe them my best effort.   I end up over apologizing and  if I’m not careful it becomes a thing.  We worked through that, she is grateful for the partner and the safety and I’ve accepted that she doesn’t care I’m slower.   This has allowed us to get into a rhythm where she can push me and I like it that way.

Tonight we started at 8:30  and ran until after the sun set.  The temp was cooler, there was a breeze and we found that we both were feeling pretty good. So we did one loop without stopping,  in the middle of loop two we decided to go for broke and complete 3 loops.   There was only walking between loops 2 and 3 for a water break. At the end of loop 3 we were about .55 miles away from hitting 5.0 so she pushed us and I agreed to go for the 5.0.  I’ve never wanted  to get to any mile as badly as I did that 5.00.   Suddenly it meant everything to me.   One single triumph in several weeks of stress, failure, doubt, anger, sadness.   I was so excited I was actually doing it, running the whole thing, no stops just like  I knew I was capable of. We got to the end of the football field and we still weren’t there 4.76, so we kept running further along the path before we turned around then we were at 4.95, 96, 99 5.0!!!!   Not only that but we were keeping a roughly 12:30 pace for 5 whole miles.  I’m more than pretty darn stoked!

That 5.o miles is in my top 3  ” I love this run” runs.  Number one still being the 15k  from the training of the last half marathon.    All of my stresses are still around but suddenly they don’t seem to matter as much as they did even earlier in the day.  Running is good for your body AND your mind.

I am roughly 8 weeks from  my next half and I think with the added cross training and weight training it just might end up being my best race ever.  Only time and work and prayers for no more injuries will tell, but I’m off to a great start!