Day 128 (4/24): 10 miles / 1:29:05

My first day at the Y and I've never felt better.

Okay, well that's a bit of an exaggeration... but I do feel pretty damn good.  I'm guessing it has something to do with the open space and tons of natural light... it has a tendency to foster slightly more upbeat thoughts than my dark and dreary basement.  And I feel rather inspired surrounded by all of these people working out around me.

Today was scheduled for 10 miles and I was definitely nervous about it... it's been a week and a half since I've gotten in a good long run and I've begun to question how it will go.  Nevertheless, I'm planning to give it my best effort.

After dropping my son off at the child care center (and feeling certain that they'll be paging me to return for something in no time at all), I head upstairs to the gym.  These treadmills are a little overwhelming compared to the one at home, but I decide to keep it simple.  No hills or crazy training programs.  Just set the speed and run for as long as I can.  These crazy contraptions have built in tvs and I find myself completely uninterested in music and settle in with an episode of Law & Order.  Seriously... how many episodes air on a daily basis?  And while I've never watched the show regularly, I have seen my fair share of reruns.  It's the only show I can think of where I've never seen the same episode twice.

Amazingly enough, the time passes quickly.  In fact, I don't remember the last time that a long run went so smoothly.  It took the first two miles to loosen up the muscles, but the rest felt like a breeze.  I even continued to increase the speed over the course of the entire run and was amazed at how good I felt when I finished.  In fact, I ran my last mile in 7:35.  And I honestly felt good enough to keep going.  Such a wonderful turnaround from how I've been feeling for the last 10 days.

Nevertheless, I still intend to follow up today's run with more ice and heat and lots of stretching.  I still plan to do my best to stay smart about the whole thing.  It's so close now that I can almost taste it...

*As a side note, and not exactly related to training, I discovered one other thing during today's workout...  In years past, during many attempted starts to getting in shape, whenever someone was next to me on the treadmills, I always felt the need to compete with them.  I'd sneak a peek at their speed and attempt to go just a little bit faster and, if that wasn't an option, I tried to run longer.  If all else failed, at the very least, I tried to look better doing it.  Don't get me wrong, I don't look 'good' running... but I made an effort to look strong and confident and not at all out of breath.  I guess I'm just a little bit competitive when it comes to these things. 

But something's different now...
At some point late in my workout, someone hopped on the treadmill beside me.  Oddly enough, I was never tempted to check on her speed or distance and I certainly felt no need to compete with her.  However, I noticed several times that she looked over at the screen in front of me.  I don't know that she was at all impressed or whether she thought I was simply nuts.  For all I know, she was actually looking past me and couldn't have cared less about what I was doing.  Nevertheless, as she looked over one last time before stepping off the treadmill, I imagined that she was in awe of my endurance and amazed that I had already run 9 miles and showed no signs of stopping. Then I realized that I was thinking of her as the me from a few years ago.  Suddenly, a very cool thought came to mind... 'old me' is very impressed with 'present day me'.  She's strong, confident and, by god, she's able to run 10 miles on a treadmill! So, whether the unknown stranger beside me was impressed or not, I found that I was actually pretty impressed with myself... and that's a damn good feeling.