This morning I woke up and, as I usually do, I checked the weather. Given my experience thus far, it’s safe to assume that England will always be either rainy or grey or a combination of both but I don’t like to carry things I don’t need (Umbrella, I’m looking at you) so I check the forecast regardless. Today was not surprisingly luckily the only day this week that it wasn’t supposed to rain, so in my moment of weakness or motivation or whatever you’d like to label it, I decided: TODAY IS THE DAY TO RUN TO CAMPUS. (Door to door, campus is 6.5 miles from home sweet home, making today’s challenge the longest run I have ever attempted thus far in my 25 years.)
The more I thought about The Long Run, the more I geared myself up. After the third song in my #OneWomanDanceParty, it was official that The Long Run was happening and I got dressed for it. I’m not sure about the rest of you, but once I have my exercise clothes on…it’s go time. Getting out of real clothes or pajamas and into exercise clothes is my mountain. Until I’m dressed with sneakers on, the workout is a total crap shoot as to whether or not it will continue as planned.
So, back to the story. I left the house and began to run. Then I ran, then I ran, then I realized (after passing the beautiful Sophie and Alexandra on the street–shout out!) that my mental map of how far I was from campus was severely mis-charted. When I run, I like to break it down into legs so I can give myself a little, “You’re already halfway there, Champ!”or pep talk in my brain. I continued as best as I could despite my inability to think like a cartographer, but the first half of the run was worlds better than the second admittedly. By the time I made it to campus, my knee had re-developed an old click it had years ago and the sky decided it was a good time for a nice spring mist (and apologies to my production tutor for showing up exceptionally late to class!)
Conclusion: On the long run, I gave myself a toe blister and a knee ache, but in The Long Run, I’m a step or two closer to my goal and that’s really what it’s about, no?
Now it’s time to go ice my body.
This is really how I feel about running… ^
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