Day 32 & 33

Day 32 – Rest / Day 33 – 11 Miles: First off, let me thank the team for hold off on our run today until this afternoon.

The rest day was pretty uneventful, but I was a little sore from the soccer game on Thursday. Friday night / Saturday morning I was up until about 2AM running my mouth and then was up at 6AM for a conference. Bad mattress, little sleep, and even more sore from the soccer game. I feasted on Cheerio’s and bananas. 4 hours in a class room, an hour and a half drive back to Lexington, quick change and off to the stadium.

We started off together, but some could not comfortably run at my slower pace so they moved on. I felt pretty good until about the 6 mile point. I began to feel the fatigue in my legs. The hills were sapping my energy pretty quick. The water break gave me some reprieve from the fatigue. By mile 8 everything in me was telling me to walk, but Taylor was close so I just kind of dragged along, one foot in front of the other. Then a strange thing happened, I felt something like liquid all around my toes of my left foot. I figured I had popped a blister or something, but I kept moving.

Well we finished right on pace. As hard as it was, because of the team, I was able to finish within the range of our goal pace. In the end, I felt pretty much the same as I did after the 9 mile. The competitive part of me is a little bummed that I can’t keep up with the pack. I also don’t like that I am so spent after these long runs. But after some reflection, I thought about it and decided that if on every long run, I can finish and feel this bad, the training is working. Why would I expect that an increase in distance would be easier? I think I can only expect for the short runs to get easier. In the end, if I am still putting one foot in front of the other after 26.2 miles, then I have done what I set out to do. If only I could turn of the competitor guy inside my brain!

2 Timothy 2:3
“Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. ”