Monday, September 20, 2010

More than I can say....

I ran 11.04 miles in 2 hours and 13 minutes on Saturday!!  It was such a gorgeous day!!  I ran around Centennial Lake again, I just love it there, it is so beautiful!  Seth had played an early game of golf, so I went a little later than I usually do, it was almost 11:00 before I started.  The temp was still pretty cool and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. 

It was a really good run.  Now I don't want to sound to "Pollyanna-ish" or overly dramatic, but I did try to block out my negative thoughts, I tried really hard to stay positive, even with the 2nd mile slump.  I said to myself over and over again "This happens every run, you just need to get through it"  I thought of many of the quotes from Lift Your Sole too (http://www.liftyoursole.com/).  One quote that stuck out was"Know your limits, not so you can honor them, but so that you can smash them to pieces and reach for magnificence."  (Even if you aren't a runner, you should "like" her on Facebook just so she can send you these wonderful quotes every day).  So this yucky second mile happened, like I knew it would, but it didn't seem quite so awful or last as long.  I'm not sure if it was all the positive thinking, starting out later, the gorgeous day or a combination of all of them, but I felt strong and confident!  Also I didn't keep checking my Ipod for my time, I checked it a few times, but not as often as I usually do.  I just had my good music and the path to keep me company.  I did get tired around mile 9, I took a bite of my Balance bar and I kept going and made it to mile 11!!!  It was glorious! 

One nice thing about Centennial Park is that there is a water fountain on the path.  So with each lap, I would stop quickly and get a drink.  I don't like carrying a bunch of stuff when I'm running so I need to figure out how to stay hydrated and keep my energy up. I was looking at those gels and chews at the store yesterday.  I'm not sure about them.  I need to try them out before I run the marathon, I don't want anything new on the day of the marathon.  I've learned that lesson!  Any suggestions would be helpful!

One cool feature about Blogspot is that it tracks your "stats."  It tracks how many hits you get and from where and the source of the link.  It's very cool but sometimes overwhelming.  People from Russia, Japan, Panama, Brazil and Romania have viewed my blog.  (The person from Romania looked at 13 pages of my blog). I love seeing that someone in France is reading my blog regularly and I hope that it is my sister :)  It all seems crazy and a bit cool!  I have no idea how they have found this little blog.  I do put it up on my Facebook page (most of my family is on FB) and I joined a Mom's Blogger group, but I don't advertise, I don't even tag words in it.  So sometimes when I look at my stats it is overwhelming.  I started this blog to keep my family informed about my progress in training for the Baltimore 1/2 Marathon, nothing more.  I have been completely overwhelmed with the feedback I have gotten and I feel like I have so much support on my journey!  I had no idea that my physical training would have such an emotional component to it.  This blog has been an incredible help to me to process everything along the way!  It's less than a month before the 1/2 Marathon, things could get crazy in these final weeks.  So while I can't tell you how much I appreciate you all reading and commenting on my blog, I can't think who might read it while I'm writing it, especially the people in other countries.  I usually just write about how I am feeling and what is going on at the moment that I write it, which I think is a lot different than other blogs.  My friend Alysia writes this amazing posts about her family, every entry has a title that is a song title too and the lyrics tie into her entry beautifully (http://trydefyinggravity.wordpress.com/). Her blogs usually bring tears to my eyes.  Or my cousin Jeneva's blog (http://jgirl3.blogspot.com/) is written with such thoughtfulness and vivid imagary about her family life that it often brings tears to my eyes too.  Other blogs offer some quirky funny anecdote or a review of some product.  I'm just not that clever, this is just me writing about my life and trying to stay positive and look for the lesson that is before me.

When I signed up to run the 1/2 Marathon, I knew that it would be a huge physical challenge, I just didn't realize it would be such an emotional challenge as well.  I have learned a lot about running, about myself and about life.  I can honestly say that I think that going through this has made me a better person too.  So thank you for taking the time to read this, reading my other posts and being a part of this, it means more than I can ever say.

3 comments:

  1. aw, Charlotte!! That's very sweet of you! I love reading your posts here and on FB. You are a running inspiration!
    Alysia

    ReplyDelete
  2. yes, I think the person reading in France is me. Of course I read it regularly, snookie.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Of course I read it regularly too.... Oops I'm here in Florida !!! :)
    I love reading your thoughts .... How cool you have readers around the world!

    ReplyDelete