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0 Something I never thought I would get excited for on the weekends have been these long runs. I have never been a runner due to my size. I have always been on the stocker side, short, and with massive legs. When I tell people I have been running a lot, they look at me and say, “You run?”.
I know I am not physical built to be a long-distance runner, but I love defying those odds. This Saturday’s run was another 10 miles, putting my last 2 long runs at 10 miles each. This is a huge step in the right direction for me because when training for my half marathon last year, I ran 10 miles only once and I think I ran 8 miles only once or twice.
So far this training season I have ran 7 – 8 miles four times and ran 10 miles twice. I am trying to condition my body to adjust to these longer runs and withstand the pain. And I do have to say that this past 10 miler felt better than the one last weekend. Not only did I run it faster, but I also didn’t feel as much pain during it, and I recovered faster. This isn’t to say that I wasn’t feeling some type of way after it, because believe me, I was. But its awesome to see that my tolerance is building.
Something else that I did differently on this run is that I had a running partner. This is something I typically don’t do but I did it for the first time with my brother-in-law a few weeks ago. I learned on that run that I haven’t being pushing myself as hard as I could be throughout my training. It also taught me that I need to surround myself with people who I know are better than me when it comes to running, so I can push myself harder than if I was by myself. So having a running this past weekend pushed me harder than I would have by myself.
Chadd Wright said it the best on Nick Bare’s podcast, we all have ceilings and you can only push yourself so far before you hit your max potential. But if you surround yourself with people that have a higher ceiling than you, then they will push you beyond your ceiling and make you better.
