The Miles in Between

You know what made my 14 mile run so great on Saturday, other than the obvious fact that it was the furthest distance I had ever run in my life? It was my last long run before VACATION! I stuck with my plan of bumping up the 14 miles by one week, so now my "long runs" for the next two weekends will be a 4-miler that I'll get in right before we get on the road Friday morning, and a 5-miler that I'll do down in Myrtle Beach.

As for how the 14 miles went... it definitely didn't feel as good as the 12-mile did. Which should have been expected I suppose, considering not every long run can be that exhilarating, but I stayed hydrated and kept my pace pretty steady until the end. I tried something a little different this time, and instead of keeping all legs of the run equal, I did 6, 5, then 3. It worked out well, saving the shortest trip for last, when you're just ready to be done.

The last mile was brutal. I always wonder, in these situations, what was so different about that last 10 minutes than the entire run leading up to that? The phrase "hitting a wall" is right on, in that you can be feeling awesome and then out of nowhere, you can't run another mile. I always try to ask myself, is it just mental? That feeling of the last mile and just wanting it to be over so badly? Am I subconsciously speeding up trying to get this thing over with? Or is it truly the physical aspect of going one mile further than your body's ever gone? It wasn't just the fatigue, in fact my legs felt fine. It was cramps all around the stomach, lungs and muscles that help you breathe. I had to pause about 3 times during the last 1.5 miles to stretch out my chest and ribcage. I was happy with my time of 2h23m. I made a point to glance at my Garmin as I hit 13.1 to see what my half-marathon time would have been--2h12m, which was 3 minutes faster than my first Mini back in 2009. Pretty good, considering this was a training run, not a race.

One day a few weeks ago my friend Sarah and I were sharing our running woes--she is currently training for her first half-marathon. We complained about the frustration of figuring out our pace, the angst of feeling like we're dying by the end of a run, the mental challenge of 13.1 or 26.2 miles when you're nowhere near that goal, etc. I (half) jokingly said, "Why do we do this to ourselves??" and she replied back with something that has stuck with me ever since: "We don't run for the first or the last miles; it's all the miles in between." How true is that? Let me tell you, when you're training for a distance race, there are a LOT of in-between miles! Everyone knows the first mile can be rough--getting in your groove, establishing your pace, working out those kinks in your legs/joints. As for the last mile, yes, it can definitely be an exciting one where you bump up that pace and have adrenaline enough to carry you past a finish line at record time. But it can also be just plain hard. And mentally draining. The one where time stands still and it feels like an eternity to run one-tenth of a mile.

But the miles in between are the ones that count--the ones where I zone out, where my endurance is building up, where I pay attention to scenery, where I feel like I can conquer the world...where I run for me.