No I did not bike 16 miles.

Wouldn’t that really be doom?

But.

I ran 16.25 miles on Sunday for my long run.  That is a new length distance record for me by 2.5 miles.  Assured-I did it extremely smartly too.  As I could have run Monday because my legs don’t hurt.

Also something I didn’t do.  (I am learning this whole running thing slowly).

I ran today too and felt awesome, but anyways.

Don’t worry, I am just as shocked as you are.  I have no doubt spent countless 2 hour practices of swimming, but never ever in my wildest dreams would I imagine I would spent over 2 hours running on trails, on hills, and on the side of the road like I was running from the police.  Just kidding.  I spent it running with one of my closest friends at school.  The man who taught me that there are more races than 5ks (thank the high heavens).  Who has run most of my half marathons with.  Basically Justin is fantastic.

He runs marathons often.

He jogs marathons often.

He mostly just spends time on the Arctrainer in the gym though.

I would be lying to you if I said Justin probably could knit pick my brain better than 99% of people I know.  I could call him and be like Justin, I don’t want to go out to the bars tonight because I want to jog at 6 am and he would always respond with okay pick you up at 5:55. Similarly, he says Hollie I’m staying at your house over winter break so I can run a 50k race near your house.

Fine with me.  My parents might think I have real life friends.

It’s just how we roll.

—————

Right then.  So I had to choose the perfect oufit to do my long run in.  By had to choose, I mean I need to choose to do laundry and this was the only one I had left.  I had lovely photos of it, but this one just shows how technology stupid I am.

And yes I wear my hair like that when I run and no it doesn't get in my face (it's too nappy for that).

So anyways, we were off to the neighboring town (because I’ve logged way to many miles up in this town for a long run).  By neighboring, it was 10 minutes away.

We had originally decided that we would run for roughly an hour and a half.  I have a weird mental block against running by myself longer.  I don’t know why-but I get super nervous like I’ll drop dead or something if I run for over 1:30 in a training run. We all have mental fears mine is running for long times, birds, and getting so lost that you never make it home.

But we got to life talking and chatting.   And talking…and chatting…and running…and talking…and chatting…and still running.  See where I’m going with this?

It was at 1:31.  I was alive and we kept running.  I took a momentary stop and talked about how cool we were.  Justin is the type of fella that does not stop running.  He doesn’t take stretching breaks, stop light breaks, or you know…nap breaks.  I needed to take this moment to congratulate myself (what..you don’t do that?)

Around 1:50, I began to become cracked out.  Like I had the creepiest smile on my face, I had bulging eyes, I was running through the woods (passerbyers seemed to run further and further on the other side of the trail).  But I finished.

During this time, I thought to myself one day I’ll be capable of running a full marathon.  It made me excited.  I made my goal to conquer the half first (ie: run a sub 1:30) then move on up to train for a full.  I seemed reasonable (in my mind at least).

And I haven’t been this proud of a run in a long time. 

So Justin and I went to my favorite place ever afterwords.  The Balgary!

Where I put down a cookie bigger than my head in all of five minutes (maybe..but I’ll go with 3 minutes).

What...you don't take photos of yourself with hugh jass cookies?

So after my not so pleasent running experience on Saturday, I had the best running experience on Sunday.  Funny how life works like that.  It should stop living my life in my own world…oh wait.

Never.

Enjoy this photo of our last race. I seem to somehow miss the "sexy pose" every single time.

Question for you:

What mental blocks have you gotten over recently?