When nature calls

Saturday was another 6 miles but this time on South Mountain. It was an absolutely beautiful day for our run. There were spring flowers blooming everywhere and I had my new Brooks on. I was ready for my six miles and I was ready to increase my run/walk pace. I moved my jog to three minutes with a 2 minute walk break. It's amazing that seven weeks into my training that my lungs still burn within the first few minutes. It will get better, I know it will. As usual I started off before everyone else since my pace is so much slower and I set off on my own and my coach caught up with me in my first rotation and asked how I was doing. I told him that I was going to try my new 3:2 pace and he told me good job. Then one of the captains caught up with me and she usually has a much faster pace than me and she's running the full marathon but she's been sick the whole week and wanted to take it easier today. Sara and I got into a comfortable rhythm, with her running still a bit faster than me. During the walk break, she would walk back towards me. The first two miles were such a struggle for me, my lungs felt like they were going to burst and I felt like a had a huge boulder in my stomach (note to self do not eat a protein bar before my runs). And of course the first half is mostly all incline so give myself a break it's going to be harder.

Then about two miles in Nature calls, of course I already past the portapotty about a 1/4 of a mile back. Do I go back or do I push forward. Well I pushed forward, in hindsight I should have turned back. So we made it to our three mile turnaround point and and about a mile from the portapotty I just couldn't hold it anymore. I told Sara she could keep going and I'd see her at the end but she said she'd wait for me. So I veered off the road and found big enough bushes sufficient enough to hide me from the road and gathered up as many of those beautiful wildflowers (checking for thorns of course) as I could. Sorry flowers. Well the rest is history, and I felt so much better. I felt like I could run another 6 miles. Another lesson learned, carry tissue in my water belt.

The rest of run was much better, considering it is mostly down hill. I stayed up with my 3:2 pace and felt great afterwards. Thanks to my new shoes, my knees didn't hurt and I just ran 6 miles in the hills on a beautiful morning.

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