Busting out on vacation

I've finally been able to get rested up mentally and I think that has allowed some extra mileage. Last weekend went running with my son and did a great 6 miler on a new course that started with 2 miles of gruesome hills and then a gentle uphill before plummeting back to the valley to wrap it up. Felt great the whole way and wow, so proud that Matthew is taking an interest in running finally... sure would have been easier 10 years ago when I was younger though.

Anyway, 3 days ago I did a run on all flat surface dirt roads and battled the bugs and humidity as I ran 4 miles with corn fields on both sides. At one point I came to a fork in the road, what I called the easy way (6 miles) or the hard way which would take me to 8 miles. without barely hesitating I thought of a new motto for my running goals; "how willing am I to step out of the comfort zone to achieve my goals." So now I have my first 8 miler under my belt and ready for the next step of maybe a 10 miler next week.

Yesterday Matthew and I ran together again and I felt great but still very stiff and my knees are pretty tight. That 4.5 miles topped the weekly total for a recent PR of 24 miles.

Work vs. Run

It's been a rough 3 weeks with the running. I've learned several things these last few weeks. For one, lack of sleep really effects my running. I switched my schedule from working nights to days for a 4 day weekend and went to Minnesota and tried to keep running but felt just awful. Then I came back and switched back to nights so I had a double dose of exhaustion there. then after working 5 nights I had to switch back to days and started a 13 day stretch of 12-14 hour shifts.

Each day that I ran after already walking about 10-13 miles at work I felt worse and worse until I finally ran a 2 miler that just killed me and I walked all the way back home. Two days ago after resting for 4 days I could barely run a mile but forced myself to go 4 so felt good about the effort. Today I had off from work and just went out for a relaxed run with no real plans for distance and it was great. Ran 7+ miles, the farthest to date and really felt good when I finished.

Just have to take the good with the bad sometimes and it may seem to be taking longer than I planned to build up my endurance but hey, could barely run a 1/4 mile that first day 4 months ago - perspective eh!