Today I was determined to run 12 miles...so I marched to the treadmill, armed with a banana, a couple dates and dried apricots, and my 32 oz. water bottle. Honestly, it was the most horrid run ever, because the last 4 miles something sort of snapped in my foot which made every step really painful. It was like I pulled something hard and then I could feel a blister on my other foot...and then my hip felt all funny, like it wasn't really in the right spot...I knew I should probably stop, but I get so stubborn sometimes and I hated the idea of stopping at 8 miles when I had only 4 more to go to finish my goal. So I kept on going...but then it hurt so much, that I had to slow down and put a lot of my weight on the handbars. I know holding on handbars doesn't really count as true running, but I was so desperate to finish.
My i-pod tracks my runs (thanks to Nike+ shoes) and I had paused the workout for a minute...when I had run for a while, I realized that I hadn't un-paused it. So I stopped my room at 11.25 miles, because I guessed that I had probably run a quarter of a mile when it wasn't tracking. But because I'm so physcological and felt like I hadn't quite finished, so later, after I had rested my feet a bit, I "ran" around our hall for around 15 minutes to get .75 miles more done. This was just to make sure I had really done it, lol. I couldn't believe that it took me 15 minutes to run that little, but my foot hurt so much I had to go really slow. But I did it and that's all that mattered! (see, I said I was stubborn)
Anyway, my lesson learned? Well, I'm not quite sure, but maybe I should warm up before I run. I'm a complete lazy person when it comes to warming up prior to exercise and have never done it, nor had any ill effects for not doing it.
I simply love this quote...
"Now if you are going to win any battle you have do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. It is always tired in the morning, noon, and night. But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired."
-George S. Patton, U.S. Army General, 1912 Olympian
All the same...it's a very wise idea to listen to your body, especially if it hurts, lol. Oh, and warm up!
