Emotional Running

Several runs to catch up on! This week we had a 3 mile, 4 mile and 7 mile run. JB, Alison and I ran our own individual 3 mile run which went well.

Tuesday, December 20th: JB was going to be gone on Thursday so she decided to ran her 7 mile run this night. She ran 3 miles with Shawn and then caught up with us at the storage units to finish her remaining 4 miles with us. Alison was out of town and could not make it, so myself, JB, Ryan, Jeff and Carmen ran this night. Good weather, a bit warm.

Thursday, December 22nd: This was our 7 mile scheduled run that was to take place at 4:30. Well, mother nature had a different idea so we had to get our run in early as it was scheduled to snow in the afternoon. Alison and I started at 10:45. This run was one of the hardest for myself as I wanted to quit 1 mile into this run. The glory of running with someone is that they are there to push you when you feel as if you want to quit. It must be a dependency that we have on each other. We have all had a run of weakness where we felt as if we wanted to quit..well, I can only think of one for JB, but who's counting :) Anyways, there are so many times we have pushed and comforted each other through that difficult run. Let's just hope we don't have that moment of weakness all at the same time because then I'm not sure what we'll do? If Alison didn't stay back and run with me and tell me it was going to be OK, I would've quit at that 1 mile. Because of her, we stuck it out and we finished in the snow. Alison's back has been hurting her after the last few runs and this was one of those runs. We stretched and hope that Alison's back gets better soon!

Saturday, December 24th 10 mile long run: Well, can I just say how awesome we are to run on Christmas Eve :) We had a good group starting out at 10 am. Myself, JB, Alison, Mitzi, Carmen, Jeannette, Amy, Melissa, gosh.. I know I'm forgetting others?! Needless to say we had a good group running! Dawn joined us about 2 miles in and ran about 7-8 miles with us. Route was down Washington, over to Mill and up to a big hill, then Washington to Carroll Glass (water), up B to Hillside to Theurer's (water) through 22nd and JB's area, through the park (water), back to Washington, to Ice house (water) then up the big hill and back over to Washington. We finished in around 1 hour and 43 minutes which included all stops, so this was a great run for us.

Emotions: First, I have to say that since I am the one authoring this blog, I feel as if most of the posts revolve around my feelings towards our training and so in the next few weeks, I'm going to give the blog to JB and Alison and have them give their perspective on here. So, that's coming.. I'm getting sick of listening to myself.
Saturday's run evoked emotions inside of myself that I've never experienced before. You know that moment of awkwardness that you feel when someone is out of control and emotional and you don't know what to do or say? Well, we had one of those moments this Saturday. Me being the out of control crazy one, and JB, Alison and Dawn the spectators who didn't know what to do. The vulnerability you feel when you're out on a run is only something that can be described and felt by a runner. When you bare your soul to the pavement, there is bound to be a moment when you feel out of control and overcome by some emotion. Fear, glee, happiness, sadness, anger, defeat. Maybe this is why we keep going back to running, to feel that emotion. For myself, running is very personal. Running is a metaphor in my life. I have been blessed in being surrounded by people in my life that cannot walk, let alone think about running. And I don't take this running experience lightly. So, there are many times when I am in pain or when I am feeling good during a run, that I feel so many emotions. And if you're a runner, you feel these same emotions...whether it's the same as myself or a feeling in another way, only you can describe and know what it is. This run was my emotional roller coaster. And this run proved that running has so much to do with life. Or maybe it's just my perception in my life. We are all so thankful of the friendships and people we have made in our lives through running. And we only hope that it keeps growing because the more we share our love for running and life, the better each one of our lives will be.

I am including two videos at the bottom of this post. Enjoy and until next time..

Quote of the day: "Running and life are much the same. A fantastic support system of friends or family can make a big difference."
-Running Quotes