The other day while perusing Facebook, one of my FB friends posted that it was only 50 days till Chicago Marathon.

Say What???

Well two days later and we are down to only 48 days!

Oh Snap…..

I will say that although I’m not feeling that I will be putting in a podium level performance (nor was I ever), I am feeling a little more confident about getting to the finish line.   I do believe that is part of training too.   Not just to get your body ready, but also to get your mind ready.

As I said before, last week when I did the 6 mile run following the 3 to 1 walk ratio, it felt good.    I came home and ordered my own Gymboss timer which luckily came for my scheduled long run.    Even better, I had a friend who was going to run the first 8 miles with me.

Since we both wanted to go about our day and it was supposed to be a hot day, we decided to start at 8:00 AM at a local park.    I will say when my alarm went off very early, I had two thoughts.   The first being, “Why am I doing this?”   The second being, “I am in so much trouble once the school year starts.”    This was my first early morning run in a LOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGG time.    For a while, I couldn’t do the early morning runs, but now it is a matter of liking to sleep in more than anything else.    As much as I hate to admit it, sometimes it is necessary to get up early to run.   This was one of those days.

It’s amazing how much the park was buzzing on an early Sunday morning.

There is something to running with a friend that does take your mind off of the discomfort of running so many miles.    We followed the 3 to 1 method chatting away.    Then it was time for my friend to depart and me to finish it up on my own.   I had my big girl panties on and off I went.   I admit that the second part of my run wasn’t as fun as the first.    It was getting hotter.    My legs were getting heavier.    Most of all, there was nothing to distract me from what I was doing.  (Ha!).

The beauty of where I was running though is that once I left the park, there really was no turning back.   If I wanted to get back to my car, I just had to keep plugging along.   I was feeling the effects of both the miles and the heat as it was up to 85 by the end.   I even took to dumping water down my back and front of my shirt.    I readily admit that by the time I was hitting mile 13 that I may (yes, I was) been walking more than I should.    My pace does reflect it.

You know what?

It’s ok because I didn’t stop.   I kept moving forward and I finished.

Really what more can you ask for?   Just keep moving forward.

Then when was all said and done, I actually walked another mile after hitting 15 since I did actually need to get back to my car which brought my total mileage up to 16 for the day.

One step closer.