I love what it does for me.
I love that I burned 568 calories in 37 minutes this morning. I love the little head games I play with myself to get through my route (currently 3 miles). I love that not only are my legs getting stronger, but apparently so are my arms and abdominal muscles. I love the extra energy I have in the day of a run, and the feeling of being completely, contentedly tired at the tail end of a running day. I love mild muscle soreness, because it lets me know I did something physical. I love beating back my mental demons. I love thinking -- even for a little while -- that I am an athlete.
I haven't gotten to the point yet where I can truly release the physical effort and spend some time in my head, but I can tell that might be coming. A former dancer's power to dissociate is still powerful, and I find myself using it often. "Just to the black mailbox. Nah, go farther than that. To the end of the road."
Two weeks from today I will start the Monument Avenue 10K race, a HUGE and very popular race in Richmond. It's 6.2 miles I have never done before, but by this time on Saturday 3/31, I will have done it. My goal is to finish in under 95 minutes, which shouldn't be too difficult, but I am entertaining other thoughts now, like running 75% of it (4.65 miles) in total. I'm signed up in a walk/jog start wave, mostly because I was sure I could do that, and because my girlfriends who I was planning to do the race with were planning to walk it, but my training has really taken off and gone well. Now I'm planning way more running.
I have a 5 mile run planned for this Sunday, then two more running days of 3 to 3.5 miles each, and then one last long run of close to six miles before I start tapering down the week of the race to a couple of 2 mile runs. I'm really looking forward to it, I'm really excited.
I can't wait to see what I can do.
PS. I am so VERY proud of my training partner, Kim, who is running the Instant Classic Half Marathon trail race tomorrow! GO KIM!!!!!
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