Day 21 - 10 miles

"Ask yourself: 'Can I give more?'. The answer is usually: 'Yes'". - Paul Tergat, Kenyan marathoner

Miles Ran: 63.8 Dollars Raised: $500

Today was our group training run--which went really well. We started off meeting in the big studio room at the gym, and I had some good conversation with a couple other runners about how their fundraising and everything is going. Then Rick went into talking about something that I feel like either affects me or I totally am in control of: the body/mind complex. Where your mind tries telling you, "it's okkkk to slow down, it's okkkkk to walk the rest of the way, or turn around and go home." Sometimes though, on those really long runs, I feel like it's the opposite--where my body and mind could push for another 2 miles easily, but my FEET feel like they're breaking and do not want to take one more step.

He also said something interesting, on that same note, that ANY of us could run a marathon today if we had to. If someone said to you, you could bring your Mom back (his example), or you could eliminate cancer, or any other reason that REALLY touches you, YOU could run 26.2 miles TODAY.

Rick's wife, Lori (and his 2 children) was there and gave some good tips on nutrition and told me about some good cold-weather gear that I'm going to check out today.

The run itself went really well. Katharine and I kept up a pretty good pace. We started off a little bit in front of everyone and finished in the front of the pack. The distance goes by SO much faster when you're with someone, though sometimes we would go for a few minutes without saying anything and just focusing on the pavement. It was a 6 mile run from the fitness center to the BU bridge and back.

Then when we returned I got some water, regrouped, and ran the 4 miles back to my apartment. Toward the end it was definitely a struggle, but I didn't break at all and kept my stride. And here I am, eating my apple, crackers and peanut butter, looking forward to a relaxing day ahead :)