Day 107: 11 Miles Eating Snow

I almost quit yesterday but I got lucky. A friend who likes to yell at me when I'm doing stupid things happened to read my blog and sent me a badgering text. Not much gets past him and between my playful chatter about fear and excuses, he could just smell the real danger of quitting. He gave me instructions for moving forward and encouragement, which are the two things you need most when you're afraid; and that helped me snap back to motivation today.

I tell you, when you're running, it takes a village. Do not think I'm doing this alone. Especially if you know me well and you know what an island I typically am... Running is different. With running, I'm no island; and maybe after all of this I'll be less of an island with everything else? It's conceivable. I can see it happening already. Funny how a basically solo sport can make you see the value in depending on others.

It was a gorgeous, sunny 40 degrees in the Park. I ran the Full Loop (6.0273 miles) and the Upper Loop using the 72nd Street cutoff (4.928 miles) for a total of 10.9553 miles, and then tacked 5/100 of a mile because I'm anal like that! I ran really slowly and didn't walk as much as I usually have to. I even ran all the uphills in my first hour. The whole thing took me 2 hours and 20 minutes. My pace was 12:49, which is a few seconds slower than I ran 10 miles or 9 miles, but I'm OK with that. I wasn't burned out at the end. Not saying I wanted to keep going; but I didn't feel devastated. I don't feel scared to go 12, which will happen in 2 weeks time when I'm away on business in Miami.

I faced a few challenges today while on the path. One was my water supply. I finished 3/4 of my bottle at the close of the first hour. No idea why I was so thirsty but I didn't want to deny myself water while running, so I cleverly (I thought) jogged out into the snow at one point, identified a virgin patch, and stuffed piles of white stuff down in my water bottle, figuring it would melt and I could drink it. Unfortunately, it never melted! So for the rest of the run, when I was thirsty, I had to open the water bottle and shake out chunks of snow.

Then, since I've been getting such bad blisters, I tried something called Body Glide and it worked on one hand because I didn't get any new blisters, but when I took my socks off after the run they were covered with blood! Maybe blisters serve a purposed? To prevent you from bleeding out! I don't know. I have to say I did prefer having bloody feet to blistered feet, so I'll be using Body Glide again. At least bloody feet don't annoy you for 4 miles. They're a silent side effect. Ah, such elegant choices!

So, 11 down, but more importantly, the danger of quitting averted. Must be on guard for future signs of quitting and nip them in the bud. This is too much of a good thing to stop now...