The day after my “vacation” in hell, I did not feel like running, let alone running 10 miles. Nonetheless, that’s what my training chart said, so off I went with my Ipod and Garmin 405. Before I began I was sure to grease myself up like a pig in a hog wrestling competition. Lena suggested Body Glide and although we don’t have that store I will find that stuff somewhere.
My slowest mile, believe it or not was the first. I ran it in 11:11. I think my mind was telling my body, oh no, here comes that great big hill. My mind forgot that we were back home in Cleveland where flat means flat (unlike in WV where flat means rolling hills). I was blessed with cool weather today and a nice cool breeze. Ahhhhhhhhh. I dare say it was almost pleasurable. No I can’t say that. But I can say, it wasn’t torture.
When I hit mile 5, I could not believe how far I was- distance becomes so much more meaningful when you are running. A couple of interesting things happened during the run. First, what goes down must come up. I loved running the down hills and I hated when they became up hills later. I just want to run down hill and take a elevator up hill. Also, at around the 5 mile mark I really had to use the facilities. I mean really. And to make matters worse it was number 2. I mean, here I am running, exhausted, and now my mind is distracted by another body part demanding attention. Why don’t they have Porta-Potties strategically placed throughout the trail. ( I was on a lovely asphalt all purpose trail- Beachwood put a lovely all-purpose trail in the middle of a boulveard- it is a little bit of nature in the middle of the city). So I thought there must be facilities in the shaded rest area I spotted a mile back (where they also have Wifi!!!!). If I just make it back I will get relief. So, I ran and ran and by the time I hit that area, I was over the urge. Thank God. Good bowels-way to hold back for the team! Still in the netherlands, I had a bad battle with chaffing down under. Ughhh. Even though I wore capri style pants thus hoping to eliminate any chaffing, it didn’t work. I was so sweaty it felt like I peed my pants. I know, gross. I was running with that feeling. The last interesting thing was that when I finally finished the 10 miles (I literally ran the last 0.10 miles looking at my Garmin waiting for the 10.00 to come up so I can stop my watch and stop running-I refuse to run one step more than I have to). I wiped my face with my hand and felt crunchiness like dirt. That’s wierd. So I tasted the dirt and it was salt! The air was so cool I guess the sweat quickly eavporated from my face and left salt crystals. When I got home and looked in the mirror there was a whole bunch of salt crystals framing my face. I thought that was pretty cool.
I did it! 10 miles and week four, or is it five, is done!
