Pain is temporary pride forever -- 16 miles!

I ran 16 miles today -- holy cow! 16 miles! It was one of the harder things I've done in my life but I am so happy after today's run. 

The first few miles I'm usually a little itchy. It seems, leave it to me, I am allergic to running. Stop laughing. I'm serious. This is where 99% of my friends sarcastically insert, "yeah. Me too." 

I always get itchy hives when I run and it's been a mystery. I thought it was the pants, then I thought it was the detergent, then I just chalked it up to being a weird-o, but nope, it's been determined - I have something called exercise-induced Urticaria  it's not that big of a deal - the hives go away after a half an hour after running and they (random folks on the internet) say I can take an otc allergy med before running to help (haven't tried that yet) but it is annoying to be running and itchy.  Oh well. But, yeah. Awesome. At least I'm not a weird-o (at least for this reason).

Anyway, despite looking like a crazy person as I scratch my legs while I'm running, I am pretty strong up until 8 miles and then the hips and lower back pain kicks in -- thankfully by miles 12 and above the lactic acid and cramping have taken over my hamstrings and glutes, so that I no longer think about the hip pain so much. LOL and by this time, I've totally forgotten about the hives… so that's all good. :)

But in-spite of all the discomfort, I really felt great today. I felt alive and focused. When things got tough with pain I chanted, "Pain is temporary, pride forever" I remembered how running for 2 minutes straight once felt impossible, and then running a mile without walking an impossible dream and now -- today I ran for SIXTEEN MILES… just ten-point-two short of the finish line.

And yes, upping the miles even more is scary and intimidating but I believe in believing that I can do it. I love the Ford quote, "If you believe you can or you believe you cannot - you are right."

While I'm still not the quickest runner in the park and I'm still eating lots of fancy looking runners dust, I felt super victorious today and I really, really, mentally needed to get to mileage like this.

I am not going to sweat this training anymore. I'm going to do the very best I can. I'm going to get to San Diego and then somehow I will run a marathon.

XO

Jen