Misery likes company

Today was the day of my long run. Once a week, I need to run a long distance to condition myself for the half-marathon. A long distance to me, is more than I've ran before: 10 km and up. It's a lot easier to run long distances when you have a running budy (you know, misery likes company), so Tyler and I decided to hire a sitter for two hours so we could go on our long run together. Up to now, I would have turned away from spending money on a sitter to go for a run, but this year, it seems like a very smart investment: Not only are we training, but we get to talk with no interruptions for two hours! It's a date with fitness benefit, so it's well worth the money spent on babysitting.

We started really slowly. The weather was perfect. It had stopped snowing and the temperature was really mild. There was a bit of a wind at the start but it wasn't nasty. We decided to take a route on the outskirts of North Gower, going by dirt roads and seeing lots of nice scenery. Because we were going slow, the run was definitely manageable and dare I say, enjoyable.

It seemed very easy for the longest part and even as we progressed the physical fatigue didn't really kick in until the very end. At that point, we also kicked up the pace which made keeping my breath a lot harder too. But I felt fantastic and it was great to have fun while running.

We ended up running for 1hr46mn for a total of 12.280 kilometers. I was really disappointed as I felt I had run farther than that, more like 14 km. Somehow, at first, 12.28 km didn't seem like a big sucess. I think my expectations were that if I was going to run farther than I ever had, it was going to be by a long shot, not by 1 km.

Thankfully, I found some good perspective once I started thinking about the number some more. Two weeks ago, I did not exercise at all and made other things my priority. In 10 days, I've managed to run 5 times and accomplished a 12 km run. I had never run that long before and to have come so far in 10 days is huge. I think I worry about how long I will have to run to complete the marathon, but I will take it one day at a time. If on the half-marathon day my run can be as much fun as it was today, with just 9 more kilometres to go from today's distance, then I'll be feeling incredible.