tired, but happy...

today was a big day for me. the schedule said 5 miles, which basically scared the crap out of me. the furthest i've ever run is 4 miles. plus, this past week was hellish with a huge application due to the state on march 1 -- so in between working 12 hour days, picking dad up from the airport (from the hawaii trip said hellish application prevented me from taking) and taking dad back to the airport, there wasn't a lot of time for running. so i basically took a week off unintentionally, leading up to my longest run ever. so i was slightly panicked when i woke up this morning, thinking how the heck am i going to do this given that i'm a week behind in my training? but i ate my balance bar at 6:30, filled up the little bottles on my fuel belt, and headed out to meet the team. once there i saw a few familiar faces, and luckily enough met up with Sam, a woman in my group who's at about the same pace as me. we decided to break off from our group and time ourselves which was the right decision. she'd had a bit of an off week too, so we took it slow and steady, 5 min run/2 min walk. we were both pretty amazed when we hit the 5 mi turnaround that we were halfway done. by talking, we got to know each other a bit better and also made sure we were keeping the aerobic (or "conversational") pace we're supposed to have on these saturday run sessions. once we could see our ending point, we decided to just keep running to the finish and we did. i felt a few aches and pains as did she, but both of us were amazed that we made it and that we actually felt pretty good afterwards. then one of the runners busted out the portable grill and served up pancakes and bacon as a fundraiser, so that felt like a well-deserved post-run treat! all in all, a good way to start the day, though again i foresee a nap in my near future...

i submitted my letters to TNT today (they offer free postage for up to 100) so you may be seeing one in your mailbox soon...i also have a web address for online donations if you are interested in helping me along my journey and supporting a great cause (just ask me for the URL)!

cheers, j