Day 104 (3/3): 12 miles / 1:58:27

I shall dub this week "The Week of a Million Distractions and Zero Miles"...

I had good intentions at the beginning of this week.  I knew I had plans for Tuesday and Thursday evening (both scheduled for 3 miles), so I planned to make up for those days on Tuesday afternoon and Friday evening.  Wednesday (a 6 mile day) wouldn't be a problem... or so I thought.

So these days I'm feeling pretty impressed with myself and the shape I'm in.  I've dropped a few sizes (not intentionally, but a lovely side effect, nonetheless) and I feel stronger every time I run.  So, I was quite surprised on Monday when I sneezed... and somehow managed to injure myself.  While it's not the first time I've pulled a muscle in my back, I must admit that I was a bit disappointed that all of this new found strength didn't help prevent this kind of thing... from a sneeze.  Lovely.  Needless to say, on Tuesday afternoon, when I intended to run 3 miles, I wasn't feeling up to it.  So that took care of day one of this week's training.

Surely I would make up for it with 6 miles on Wednesday... but then, as if back injuries were contagious, my husband threw out his back on Wednesday morning and, after not being able to walk for a few hours, he opted for a trip to the emergency room, which is where I spent the rest of my afternoon.  By the time my son went to bed and things had settled down enough to consider going on my run, I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  Another day of training down the drain.

In addition to all of that, this was the week we opted to work on potty training our son... a very exhausting project, but one we were determined to stick with, regardless of what this week threw at us.  So, by the time Friday evening rolled around, the only thing I was interested in was curling up in the recliner with a big bowl of candy... which, I'm not proud to admit, is exactly what I did.

This meant that today's scheduled 12 miles felt like a huge feat that I wasn't sure I could conquer.  With an entire week of missed training, I realized I needed to let myself off the hook a little.  Fortunately, a few weeks back, I'd stumbled upon an article about training for things like this and the fact that, no matter how hard you try, life will always manage to get in the way and that the most important thing you can do is forgive yourself for the missed days and get back on track when you can.  So that's exactly what I did.  I decided that, instead of 12 miles in one day, I wanted to get in 12 miles this weekend.  That meant at least 6 today and whatever was left tomorrow.  So I jumped on the treadmill anticipating a 6 mile run with the intention of going even further if I felt I could handle it.

The first 6 really weren't too bad.  I felt pretty strong and decided that I'd give a 7th mile a try... after all, I'd just done 7 a week earlier and surely I could handle that.  Once I'd accomplished 7 I realized that I could definitely handle another 10 minutes, which would take care of 8 miles today and leave only 4 for tomorrow, so I went for it.  The real problem was when I got to 8... I realized just how close I was to 10, which is what I had planned to run 2 weeks earlier but came up short because of an error in my route.  I still felt good and knew this was my chance to make up for that run, leaving myself only 2 miles for tomorrow.  When I finally reached 10 miles, wouldn't you know it, I felt I just had to run all 12 .  For one, there was no way I wasn't going to be sore from today's run and the odds of feeling up to even 2 miles tomorrow was unlikely.  The real problem, however, was that I knew I would wish I had run all 12 if I had come this close.  No question, mile 11 was tough, but that last mile took everything I had in me.  It came down to sheer determination.

So here I am, nervous about how I'm going to feel tomorrow morning and whether all 12 miles was such a good idea.  That's when it hits me... this is the farthest I've ever run... in my whole life.  Then a second reality comes crashing down... I'm still not quite half way to a marathon.  Talk about eye opening.  And somehow thrilling at the same time.  I suddenly feel great and can't wait to reach my next "longest run ever"... because, as strange as it may sound, at this particular moment, I'm feeling like I can handle just about anything :)