Time With My Thoughts

I had a long training run this morning - 8 miles - and during that time, I found myself doing a little reflection.  It's amazing what two hours (and six minutes) alone with your thoughts and some tunes can yield!

Starting at the bottom...of my feet
A few weeks back, I was at a bar with some guys from work and one was telling me his philosophy of feet.  He says that you can tell a lot about a woman by the state of her feet.  At the time, I made a joke about him having a foot fetish, but agreed with him.  I spend about as much time on making my feet pretty as I do on anything else - not a whole lot.  My polish is usually chipped and/or multi-colored, my shoes are for comfort rather than style, and I didn't spend the time or money for pedicures even when I had the time or money for pedicures.  In other words, my feet show that I'm low-maintenance, and not concerned with appearances.

But today, I was thinking about the actual damage to my feet.  I have blisters from my shoes, blisters from my blister remedies, and callouses and scars from running combined with other factors.  My feet show more than that I don't care about appearances.  They show that I am capable of continuing through adversity.  They show that I'm not a quitter.  And really, what could be more beautiful than that?

Progress
I've been thinking a lot about my progress recently.  Remember when it was a huge deal that I was able to run a mile in under 14 minutes?  I realized recently that I'm pushing towards a sub-13 pace these days.  I'm sure I could do it for a mile, but then would be wrecked for the rest of my run.  On my morning runs, I tend to get disappointed when my pace isn't under 14 minutes for both miles. 

In addition to speed, I am shocked at my stamina.  When I was training for the 10-Miler, my last decent run was 6 miles.  And I blogged about the utter failure that was my 8-mile training run.  Today, I took a few walk breaks and even stopped to take a few pictures, but pretty much maintained a moderate pace throughout.  And when I finished, I was smiling.  Really!  Ask Scott!  I also managed to make it through the rest of today without a nap.

(note: my weekday runs are up to 30/35 second run-walk intervals. today's long run was a pleasantly slow 20/40, which was easy to maintain)

My next long run is 10 miles, in two weeks.  I have a 5k next week, and am wondering if I'll be able to beat my pace from the Jingle Jungle 5k last month.  And for anyone keeping track, the Princess Half Marathon is 77 days away.

I got this.