8.4 miles!

Over the weekend, my husband and I watched the movie "Without Limits", again.  It is, in my opinion, the best movie about Steve Prefontaine.  If you haven't seen it, I highly suggest it, even if you're not a runner.  One of my favorite parts of the movie comes when Bill Bowerman (Nike co-founder) says the following while speaking at Pre's funeral: "In running, it isn't about winning the race.  It's about testing the limits of the human heart."

Today I put that to the test.  I have come to a turning point with my running - in my mind I've been hearing myself saying, "Do it or don't do it, but quit whining about it."  Today I decided to do it.  It's my husband's day off, so after I took the kids to school, I geared up and headed out for a run.  I wore my IT band/knee brace and my Zensah calf sleeves to help with the issues I've been having, and right from the start of my run, I used positive mantras and repeated words of affirmation in my mind.  I used words and phrases like: I believe, I am strong, my legs are fast, I've got this, I am fit, I feel good, this is fun, RUN, RUN, RUN!  Over, and over and over I repeated these things in my mind, sometimes even out loud...for a total of 8.4 miles, and I didn't walk even once!  When I got home and downloaded my Garmin info, I had averaged a pace of 11:21 min/mile for the whole run.  I am very pleased.  I even got a cat-call from some guy at a factory I ran by, and I was also offered a ride by some other weird guy - okay, maybe those aren't exactly good things, but hey, I'm being positive!  It may sound cheesy to some of you, but I have come to the conclusion that "winning" at something, in this example, running, is 90% mental, 10% effort.

After my run I did 30 minutes of Yoga for cool down and stretching.  I'm looking forward to a great week.  :)