Last Long Training Run

Scenes from my last long training run

Running is tiring. I went for my very last long training run on Sunday, and it was tiring. My race is next week. I'm nervous. But I'm pretty sure I'm ready. I ran 12 miles. TWELVE. And around mile 10 and a half, things started to get kind of ugly. It's when I heard myself talking out loud, saying things like "just relax into it!" or "breathe!" or "only three more miles, you can run three miles, easy." I did start panicking just a wee bit on Sunday. I had to really intentionally calm down, and just keep going (See, above, "just relax into it!"). What I am most impressed about is how strong I feel, and that my short little legs can carry me so far. One of best parts of my run on Sunday was running past a couple of guys (or, rather, middle-aged dudes) on two occasions. We past each other at around my mile two, and then I saw them again also coming the opposite direction and I was on mile 7. So they knew that I had a long way to go to get back to where I was. One guy leaned over to the other and as they approached me for the second time, I heard him say to his buddy, "She's putting miles in today" and I admit, it felt kind of awesome. Now, I just have five more days and I'll be running my half marathon.