So much to say, so much to say...

Last Saturday was my 16 mile run. That's the farthest I've ever gone before!! It took me just over 3 hours to do it, so I had plenty of time to think about what to write about. I came up with so many things, I will probably have to split them all into two posts!

First of all, WOOOHOOO!!! I finished 16 miles!! It felt pretty good. My knee and right hip started giving some trouble about mile 14.5, and my quads are still really sore, but overall, I was pleased to find that I didn't bonk and I didn't die. It was a long run. I have even longer ones coming up and they scare me a little. But it's good to be a little scared. If it was easy it wouldn't be a marathon, right?

I have decided that running any distance more than about 10 miles is sort of like getting a tattoo. You know it's going to hurt before you start, but once you do start, you eventually become a bit numb to the pain. In a weird way, at least for me, during the long miles I start to feel the tiredness and the things that are beginning to hurt, and I do register them, but it's as if those things exist in a part of my mind that I can "file away." Sure, if I dwell on them, they start to drag me down, but if I just notice them and push the thoughts into the "file for later use" box, I can let my thoughts go elsewhere and my body just keeps moving. Getting into the longer and longer runs has sometimes felt surreal to me. I know I'm consciously making a choice to keep running, but it does almost begin to become subconscious...like breathing. My legs just keep going. I'm not thinking, "I just have to run one more mile," or "I just have to run to that tree" because I often have so much farther to go I can't even fathom it rationally. I just think, "keep going," and somehow, I do. There is a point during almost every run over 13 miles when I eventually hit a wall. The stuff in the "file for later use" box falls out all over the place and it is tough to pick it all up, cram it back in there and keep going. But I'm learning how to do it. Right about mile 15 on Saturday, the box started to throw-up everything I'd crammed in with the knee and the hip and the aching quads. I stopped for two or three minutes, had a drink and stretched, and kept going. I sure hope I can keep being able to do that as we add even more miles!

Next, I was reading an article a while back...and I can't remember WHERE I read it or who wrote it, darn it...but the writer was a runner and said he really liked running to Japanese Taiko drums. I thought that was interesting, and checked out a few tracks just to see what it was like. I REALLY like a song by Kodo called Strobe's Nanafushi. If my head had a soundtrack when I'm running a long run, this is what it would be. Lots of loud drums and yelling. Cool. There are a couple of other fun songs on the album, too. Check it out if you want something new and adventurous to listen to. I also had a new Podrunner mix on my last run, and it contained some running cadences. Something else interesting to try if you're bored with your current playlist. Find the Podrunner mix for FREE on iTunes: Power Play.

More to come soon...