He was Very Top Heavy

I am so happy right now I can't stand it.  I ran 32 miles this month, I ran 18 miles this week, and I am on target to meet my "marathon a month" goal.  This morning I ran my first race over a 5K, I ran a 10K.  I have never run six miles straight, even before the skiing accident.  I wore my medal and my race shirt all day.

At the beginning of the race (roughly 6:30 AM on a Saturday ... why do races do this to us?), my friend and I noticed a couple in front of us that was the most muscular in shape couple I'd ever seen.  She was telling me she should have trained more, and I mentioned, "I bet those two trained, they're going to kill us."  My friend and I did the first run at 12 minute mile, and then we separated.  For some reason, I became super competitive, and I just wanted open road in front of me.  I wanted to not see a herd of people, but I wanted to be first, and I ran 9 minute miles the remainder of the race.  At one point, very close to the end of the race, and for the first time I started forming thoughts other than "Pass that girl in the Ohio State Jersey...", and I noticed, I've ran 5.5 miles already.  My body became exhausted and I felt like I was going to just collapse.  I just kept saying over and over in my head, you did not run 5.5 miles to walk across the finish line.  It is roughly 5 minutes, I can do anything for 5 minutes.

Then I saw them!  The muscle couple, WALKING, exhausted on the side of the race path.  He was rubbing her back and looked like he may fall over at any moment (he was very top heavy ...) I lost all desire to walk, and I sprinted the rest of the way.  I beat them!

I never understood how amazing the feeling of training, working your ass off and being prepared can be. Time to extend this to other things in my life.  First stop graduate school.

159 Miles Down 156 Miles To Go