The Ups and Downs of a 6.4 Mile Run

Well, I did it.  I ran the distance of a 10K.  Yesterday I set out to run 5 miles but ended up running 6.4 instead.  I would like to say it was a nice easy run and that I felt awesome doing it, but that would not be true and it would be an injustice to everyone out there who is training to run any race (or just looking to begin running in general).

Yesterday's run was difficult.  Many times I thought about giving up and walking home or stopping and taking just a "short" break, etc.  Around mile 2 I hit some fatigue that made me want to never run again.  I remember thinking, "My friend is right...I'm crazy to think I could ever run a 10K.  I can't even run 2 miles without dying..." However, as I paid attention to what my body was feeling I noticed that my fatigue level had plateaued.  It was staying at a steady "so-close-to-being-too-tired-to-keep-going" but it never quite crossed into the "too tired" zone.  It came very very close, but it didn't do it.  So I kept running.  And running.  All over my little neighborhood.  When it hit 5 miles I was still about a quarter of a mile away from my house.  For whatever reason that made me think "5.25 miles is almost 6.2 miles...I should just run the full distance..."  And I did.  I ran a bit farther than that actually because I misjudged my location within my neighborhood.  Oops!

I guess what I've learned from this is that it is 100% mind over matter.  My body was tired.  It wanted to stop at mile 2.  It was done.  But my mind and willpower weren't done.  I wanted to achieve my 5 mile run so badly that I pushed through the pain and fatigue and accomplished more than I set out to do originally.  I'm so inspired by the power of the mind and encourage you to test your strength of mind on your next work out.  You will be very surprised by the results.