Mission Accomplished

The past several weeks have led to today, which became a significant milestone for me. The significance is, well, not all that significant in reality, but its something that didn't come easy for me. Seven years ago when we moved into our house I was still running occasionally. Occasionally I would venture out into the neighborhood streets for a quick run. Occasionally, I would feel like a hero and try to push myself further. I pretty much always just felt like this guy...Rusty.

At some point along the way, I decided to set a goal to "run the neighborhood". This meant that I would run all the streets (including the side streets) from my driveway returning to the exact same spot at some point in the future. It turned out to be one of the hardest goals I set and it took seven years to check it off the list. I will admit that I didn't try all that hard to conquer this goal, but anytime I felt that I was "in shape", I would lace up and hit the pavement. More often than not, my hopes were dashed as I succumbed to the rolling hills that is Piper Glen. I tried many times. My best attempt came in March of 2009 where I laid down 8.9 miles in 1:25. That was the closest I ever got until a few weeks ago. While training for the WC a couple of weeks ago, I hit 10 miles which was about a mile short of the goal. 

Today was supposed to be THE DAY. I felt like crap most of the day yesterday and wasn't motivated to do this run at all. I was trying to lay down my last long run before the race next weekend. With the iPod sync'd and the Garmin charged, I set out to take down my neighborhood on foot. Here's how it went down:

Pre-Run: 54 degrees, wet roads, overcast. I really didn't want to go out, so I spent the morning pumping myself up.

Mile 1: Went out way to fast (as usual), slowed down a bit after that.

Miles 2-3: felt ok, but the legs weren't turning over that good.

Miles 4-6: the hills were really hurting at this point.

Mile 7: since this is the distance for the race next weekend, I really wanted to quit. Craving for cream soda  begins. I always crave some reward food during my long runs. I'm probably not alone on this one.

Mile 8-10: mostly on autopilot, really suffering at mile 10

Mile 11: Physically dead, finished on will power alone. I could barely walk up the driveway.

Post run: I was a zombie. Wife had to open my cream soda for me. Sheesh. Man did that taste good.

DONE and DONE!

That was hard!  Really hard. I'm glad to say that I finished that goal. As I indicated in my last post, there are three additional sections on my neighborhood that I forgot to factor into the run. The jury is still out on whether or not those are "legally" part of the neighborhood.