Day 8. I may not be there yet but am closer today than I was yesterday. This is what I told myself tonight as I pushed through three more miles…I’m not going to lie, the way I felt while running, I wasn’t so sure. But…first full week of training down, 13 more to go.

First week went relatively well, but I did short myself one day’s training. In my defense though, Mother Nature interfered by laying a beautiful sheet of ice down making it impossible to run. I wasn’t exactly heartbroken, but I am a rule follower and still feel pretty guilty about it. On the up side, the mini-vacay showed how easy it is to work in a run while away – and I got to experience one ass kicker of a hill. The cabin we rented was about 1.2 miles up the mountain, so we (had a handsome running companion) got up early Saturday morning and ran down the mountain and slowly ran/walked back up.

First lesson learned from week one – I am pretty sure I am going to die running up the hill around Mile 11 of the Marine Corps Historic Half. I haven’t seen the hill yet, but from what I understand, it’s a little over a mile straight up. Marines have an odd sense of humor.

Second lesson. I need to figure out how to stretch my calves out – they are still sore from the massive hill and that was three days ago. I’ve done the usual stretches but they were cramping as I ran tonight – not sure I can run 13.1 miles with that happening.

Lesson three. I have some wonderful people in my life. The love and support I’ve received over the past week is inspiring and makes me want to work harder for them. I’ve never really been the type of person that requires praise to perform well, but it’s nice knowing so many people believe in me.

Final lesson – never, ever, ever play Bean Boozled again. Unrelated to running, but seriously the worst game I have ever played.

I’ve also learned that I need to continually remind myself that I am doing this for me and if I try to measure my success against others, I will defeat myself even if I finish. I say this because as I ran tonight there was a woman running on the treadmill next to me and she was slaying it. It felt like she was running 10 times faster than me and I found myself trying to keep up – and I was failing. My calves were cramping and I needed to stop and stretch and I almost denied myself that because I was feeling so inferior. I eventually stopped for a minute and did a couple stretches and then got back to it but had I not and regained my pace; I may not have been able to finish.

It’s not about being better than someone else, I’m not a super competitive person, this is more about me not feeling like I measure up. Part of the damage I am trying to heal is learning that I may not be the best, but whatever I am is ok – maybe even fabulous 🙂

Off to downward dog and bask in my success until Thursday.