Made It. Somehow!

THAT RUN IS DONE!!!!

Good grammar? Not so much, but I don't care because the important thing is that I finished that run and didn't just collapse in the middle of it.

Dramatic? Actually, not so much!! Here's how it went down (but, not literally!). It all started at 5:15 a.m. when I woke up and never really fell back to sleep. That's never good especially when I wanted to get up at 6:00 a.m. *sigh!* I was reasonably pumped for this run, though, so once I was up, I felt good to go. The plan was to do my first three, then I'd swing by the house to pick up PC#2 for the last 5. It was her first go at 5 miles, and I was pretty jazzed to do this with her!

I wasn't a tenth of a mile from the house when I felt my legs were nothing but jelly. Literally, my thighs were quivering (or, was that their potty mouth action coming back into play?). Call this the aftermath of painting a bedroom yesterday; evidently, the repeated on and off of the chair to reach to the ceiling served as a very effective stairmaster. Given the height of the chair, it was a stairmaster on steroids. Of course, we can't forget the number of squats performed to paint close to the baseboards. Complaining? No. It's just reality, and I didn't expect it.

I also didn't expect the humidity to be as heavy as it was even though I should have known better. When it's almost 80 degrees at 5 a.m., you know you're in for nothing great. Unless you're headed to the pool. Which I wasn't. (Oh, just get ready for the whining ... just get on board now ...!)

I did receive a great distractor in the form of finding a penny inside of the first mile, and, just after that mile marker, I came across these:

A trellis full of my favorite color!! Just for me!!

Just after is a hill I've not run for quite some time. It's one that I've always been able to defeat physically, but that usually comes with quite a bit of mental work. Today, even how I was feeling, I cruised right on up. It called for a quick moment of looking back:

I know it doesn't look it, but that's almost
4/10 of a mile on the ol' incline. And, it's
mine!!!

At this point, I cruised the last mile and a half without any issue whatsoever. I even found another penny! I figured I just took my normal 1-2 miles to warm up and get in my groove and thought nothing more of it. Until PC#2 and I headed out ...

Yow.Za.

First of all, I did get a bit of water when I picked her up, and I obviously drank it too fast because I had the worst, immediate stomach gas ever. I had to stop us twice to let loose my siren song. And, even though she should be used to that from me, PC#2 wasn't quite sure what to do with the sheer volume of my sounds. Nor was the rest of the neighborhood, but whatever.

Once we took off, my legs were screaming. Then they acted like they were going to have no part of running. Then, they moaned. Then, they jellied. It was all I could do to just focus enough to not let them buckle right under me! I'm totally not kidding, either, this was ridiculous. And, there was PC#2 right next to me trotting happily along! There was no way I was ruining this run for her. It being her first 5-miler is a big deal, and I was determined to make that happen the best and safest way possible for her! So, onward we went!

I was good -- as good as it was going to get today -- for the first two miles. I had us stop at the drinking fountain at that point because we didn't bring any water with us. Normally, we wouldn't need it here, but given the temperature and conditions, I wanted to make sure PC#2 learned to incrementally hydrate even if she didn't think she yet needed it. Need or not (which I'm sure we did), we sure wanted it! Thumbs up to the water stop!!

I'm pretty sure the lady in the background is asking her running
group why they still have to keep going when it's so hot and
why they can't just go to breakfast then head to the pool ...
Seems that way anyway.

Based on yesterday's forecast, I planned the majority of our together run to be on a trail to capitalize on its ample shade. You'd think I'd like running the trails we have available because they're flat, but I actually prefer the streets for the up and down variation. The trail isn't much better than the treadmill in that regard. But, it is a lot prettier:

Not long into this part of our journey, I made it very clear to PC#2 that I very much needed to adhere to the "cover the distance" theme and that I just wasn't feeling any part of this run. I slowed down as much as I could and kept reminding myself, "Just cover the distance. That's all."

If I'm being honest, which I am, I have to say that with about a mile to go, I just wanted to stop. Oh, and to cry. I was exhausted. I felt totally depleted. Nothing about this run made me feel strong or empowered or any of the other good things that tend to come during and after a run (note, I did not say 'before a run', ha!). My only goal was to keep the run going (stopping only to dump rocks out of my shoes which I had to do twice, darned trail!) so PC#2 could have that victory!!

Two things made me pick up my pace along the way, though. First, I looked ahead and saw a turtle!! That thing was hauling  it across the trail, and if we didn't pick up speed, we would have missed it. I had it in me to make sure we greeted him!

Okay, there's going slow, and there's letting a turtle beat you.
I picked it up.

He stopped and posed before going on
his way!

The other thing that got me geared up? Seeing Aaron and PC#3 at the end!!

This is actually PC#3 seeing us before I
saw them. We're coming!! We're coming!
And, please do not be a mirage!!!

The funny thing is right before seeing them, PC#2 looked ahead and said, "We're almost there!" but, I told her what she was seeing was not our stopping point (I thought we had another mile to go, but I didn't mention that part -- she was doing great, and hearing you have another mile when you think you're almost finished can really swat the wind outta you. I didn't want to do that to her!). Fortunately, within seconds, I realized how happily wrong I was ... straight ahead were our two boys waiting and waving!

Awe.Some.Sauce ... we were finished!!!

The thrill of victory, and the agony of the mama ...

The boys brought us water bottles, but before sucking them dry, we hit the drinking fountain during which time Aaron found this:

Awwww ...

By the way, I might mention that there was one more wildlife representative on our venture: On the way home, PC#2 found a tick crawling across her hand which she promptly yelled about and flicked at me. (I know! Nice!) It did give both of us another reason to leave the trail to the colder times, though ... it'll be a good excuse, at least, to bring back the hills!

So, we made it together! It was probably the worst run I've had in years, but I'm happy happy happy to report that my internal talk was exclusively about recognizing the factors going into the stinky run and realizing it's an anomoly. Different weather, different day, different all-sorts-of-things will make the next one better. Or worse, who knows. It'll be what it'll be, but it will be accomplished!

(My Daily Inspiration and Motivation's Facebook photo)

Congratulations to PC#2 on this goal -- Rest Day is well earned, my dear! In the meantime, there is no one around here complaining that tomorrow is Rest Day!! I'll be checking in from there!