Well, this morning I'm sitting on the back porch of my brother-in-law's house in Chicago. I'm enjoying the beautiful morning, before it heats up to the mid 90s again.
This morning I got up at 6:00 am to go for my first official "long run". I call it my first official long run, because 1. it is the longest I have ever run in my life 2. starting now, my weekends are going to include a run longer than my weekday runs.
Before I came to Chicago, I used mapmyrun.com to map out two routes I could choose from this morning. One was a one mile loop, while the other was a two mile loop. In the 7 hours that it took to drive to Chi-Town, I decided on running the two mile loop. Even though it is was a little more hilly, I thought it would be easier for me to stop after 3 miles running the one mile loop.
So here's how it went. Excellent! That pretty much sums it up. I was nervous last night about being in a car for 7 hours, then running this morning. But when I started my warm up, I was felling pretty good. Also, although it was a hilly run, the up hills were not straight up hill. It would go up a little, then level off, go up a little, then level off, etc. So the hills in the first three miles didn't seem bad at all.
Starting the last mile was mentally kind of tough. I could tell my body was like, "Wait! What is going on! We have never ran this far before!" I asked the Lord to be with me and to give me the mental strength to make it to the end and he delivered! At about a quarter of a mile into the 4th mile, there was a pretty big hill. Okay, it might not be that big or even really be classified as a hill, but in my mind it was really big. I slowed a little, trying to keep my effort level the same, as I had done throughout the entire run. I kept telling my self, "All I need to do is make it to the top and it will be all down hill from there."
I reached the top before I knew it and the run was done too before I knew it. It was a great run! I felt good throughout and got lost in thought a couple times. I'm even looking forward to my 5 mile run next Saturday!!!
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4 comments:
That's great to read man. I have been running for 40 days now. This morning I ran two miles with one 60 second walk break at the 1 mile mark. That's good for me. I am planning on my first 5K in Sept/Oct.
I'll be linking here from my blog.
Joe,
Congrates on your progress. You'll be running a 5k in no time! If your already up to two miles, I think you'll be ready for a 5k sooner than that.
I would even recommend run/walking one now, so your get the feel for what it is like.
Just be careful, they are addictive!
Congrats, yo!
Congratulations and keep up the good, no great, effort.
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