Week 8, and all the fun things that come with running longer distances

Week eight wasn't as smooth as the prior weeks and I was stressing. Looking at that number on the Higdon schedule, staring back at me like a mountain peak to be climbed. It seemed impossible, especially after the disastrous short run of only 4 and a half miles two days earlier.

 I didn't wake up early enough to get a run in so I waited until evening when it looked like a storm was looming off in the distance and I was thinking cloud cover would make my run a little more bearable. Typically, clouds and the storms that seem to roll in on a bi weekly basis come in fast but it was just my luck and the clouds offered me no cover.

 After only one mile an odd tingling came down my arms, and into my hands. I felt light headed and had to take several walk breaks. How in the heck was I was suppose to make it 8 miles in just two days?

  I thought about my day, I had consumed more sugar than I typically did, I had barely drank any water, and it was just too hot than what I was used to, in hind sight it made sense that my run sucked.

 Saturday night I made sure to drink plenty of water, I set my alarm for 6:15 so I could beat the heat, okay I actually got out of bed at almost seven but it was better than an evening run. I made sure to take a bottle of water, with my weird chia seeds that my family teases me about, and I just made myself do it.

  I had read a short article by Scott Jurek about setting little goals throughout the run (okay, the article was about 100 mile runs but essentially this was like a 100 mile run for me right? so the same psychology would work) so I told myself there would be no walking but I would stop every mile to drink my water.

  There is absolutely no shade on the path I run except for an old grain mile only a mile from my house that I can about five seconds out of the sun but that is it. I did manage to lean against a phone for a second while I took a drink wondering what in the heck had ever possessed me to believe that living on the prairie would be something I would even remotely like doing, but I digress.

  Five miles seems to be the distance where if I can get there, my brain flips a switch and says "oh, so this is what we are doing. Fine, I will stop trying to convince the body it is going to die and needs to stop running RIGHT NOW." My body resigns itself to its situation and trudges onwards.

 Five miles also seems to be the distance where chaffing begins to catch up with me. Who would have thought the wrong kind of underwear could create such an unpleasant topic of discussion when your husband asks how your run went.

 Onward I went, and that last quarter of a mile down that miserable gravel road greeted me. I stared at the road, staying on the path worn by truck tires where the rocks weren't sticking up every which way. I focused on my breathing pattern and sang a song in my head, anything to focus on NOT looking at the house, which seemed so far away but I did it, I reached our driveway, 8 miles complete!