I ran my longest run to date yesterday...which, as you may have deduced from the title of this post, was 14 miles. 14 miles is kind of a long way to run, in my opinion! But, I survived! My friend Sonja encouraged me to get two 14 milers in before I run my next half-marathon, but thanks to the hip pain I've been having, I decided I would be happy to get one 14 mile run in. I actually only ran twice last week...after track practice on Wednesday, I started having some piriformis (hip/butt) pain. So, I decided to cut back my mileage a bit to try to let it heal up. I took Tyler for a hike on Saturday (as in carrying him in the pack), but didn't run at all between Wednesday and Sunday. So, yesterday morning, Baxter and I set out on the Cherry Creek trail with the goal of running all the way downtown and back. This was the first run that I carried water on (although I know I should have been doing it all along for my long runs, at least once I got past 6 or 7 miles), and it was kind of a weird feeling. I had initially decided to pretend like there was an aid station every two miles and walk "through the aid station" while drinking like I would in a race. Except I got to the turnaround point at 7 miles and decided that maybe there should be an "aid station" every mile from then on. :-) Oh, yeah, and one of these days, I have GOT to design a long run that goes uphill on the out portion so I can go downhill on the back portion! It was a long, hard run, but I survived (and so did Baxter, although he started dragging a little around mile 11 or 12...and slept the rest of the day!). I got home, sat in an ice bath, and checked the results of the women's marathon Olympic trials to see that Deena Kastor won the trials in less time than it took me to run my 14 miles! I couldn't even run one mile at as fast a pace as she ran 26!
As I get more into running, I'm truly amazed at the ability some people have...it's incredible! A woman in my online running group (for moms who run) ran the Boston marathon today--and smoked it, in 3 hours and 36 minutes. She's only been running for 2 years, and qualified for Boston on her first attempt. Awesome! I wish I had that natural running ability, but I am embracing what I do have, which is the desire to be strong and healthy, and to set a great example for my son so that he grows up to be strong, healthy, and active!