Gut Check

For those of you who don't know... I am training for a marathon in October. I've been very fortunate to have some great running partners to join me while I log some serious miles. This past weekend was no different. We knew that it was going to be a warm day, so we started out at 7 am for our 18 mile run. We had decided earlier in the week to run up Terwilliger all the way into Lake Oswego and back. For those of you who aren't familiar with Terwilliger... it's got some nice hills and once we got into Lake Oswego, I realized those hills were going to seem even bigger on the way back.

I've been running with Susan, Bhavna and Kevin for years and one of the things that I appreciate about them is that we have this unspoken agreement, that we can run our own pace. I was struggling a bit on my way back up Terwilliger heading out of LO and let the group get ahead of me. With about 6.5 miles left, they all decided to head off to a nature center to use the facilities. I was having a rough time and knew that if I got off course, even for a little bit, I wasn't going to make it, so I went ahead of them. This run was probably one of the hardest I have done, especially for a training run. It was a serious gut check for me. I was emotionally, mentally and physically drained by the time I finished. But the key thing is I finished.

It was a good practice run for what I will go through in October. Probably the hardest thing for me about doing that race is that I won't have the support of family and friends that I would have if I were running in Portland.

I am continuously grateful for my family and friends and all the support they give me! I owe a huge thank you to my running friends who have made those long runs a little easier!