Sweet 16

Those of you who've been following my foot saga probably know why I was feeling a little iffy about the 16 mile run I had planned yesterday. On top of the foot saga, I'm still trying to fight off the sinus infection I came down with just before last week's long run. I purposely ran at the park again so that I would never be too far away from my car if my foot started to hurt and I needed to stop running.

For the first four miles I was overly focused on my right foot, constantly analyzing every step, waiting to see if pain was going to start. But the first four miles were fine. After that, I started to relax a little more. At eight miles, I still had no pain in my foot and was feeling great. Around mile twelve my hips were starting to get a little tight on me, but nothing so bad that it affected my pace. At that point, I was just thrilled that I'd made it through the majority of my run without any stomach pains or cramps. As I set out for the last four miles of my run, I wasn't thinking about my sore hips or whether my foot was going to start hurting, I was just really, really excited that I was going to finish my 16 mile run. I think on those last four miles I experienced a little bit of the elusive "runners' high" - from mile 15 to mile 16, I was so ridiculously thrilled with myself that I wanted to sing along to my mp3 player out loud at the top of my lungs, even though my hips were really getting to me at that point.

Today I am S-O-R-E, but it feels amazing to get that run under my belt before the half marathon. Tomorrow I have to deal with a bone scan, but for today I'm just going to really enjoy the fact that I ran 16 miles yesterday.