Eleven Hours

NyQuil is good stuff. I slept for over 11 hours last night and only remember getting up once. Hubby says I was coughing while still asleep, but it didn't seem to bother me. Only him. :-) I think I made up for some of the lack of sleep for the past week. I may have even banked some in the reserves.

I've been reading, "Ultra Marathon Man" by Dean Karnaze. A marathon is 26.2 miles. An Ultra Marathon is any race of a distance beyond that. So an Ultra could be 50 miles, 75 miles, 100+ miles. He describes the experience of his first Ultra, a 100 mile trail race through the mountains Sierra Nevada range in California. The goal is to finish in under 24 hours. I won't spoil how that ended... you read the book.

Karnazes described the last part of the race and being focused on nothing but the task of finishing. Finishing involved crawling on his hands and knees down the road for part of the last mile. But he stayed focused on finishing.

When I run I often try to think of other things to distract myself so I forget I'm running. Sometimes it works. Other times those thoughts make me emotional and I cry and then the whole run falls apart. (I could cry about ANYTHING! I once cried about an OnStar commercial where a woman locked her baby inside her car. Good Grief. In my defense I was an emotional pregnant wreck at the time.) 

Today, during my long run, I stayed very focused on the task of getting it done and staying consistent in my effort. I broke the run down into very small parts, generally 6 minuets of running at a time. I focused mostly on that amount of time using imagery of seeing myself getting it done.

It worked. I had a better pace today than I have for a long time. I finished the run strong, but also not  a lot left in the tank. So I gave it my best and I feel good about it. I had a solid 12 mile training run today.

“Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.”
― Dean Karnazes

 

 

Lupus Foundation of America