I am committed to my running.  So much so that even if my long training run falls on my vacation I do my best to make sure I am out there getting in the miles.  This week Jeff Galloway has me running a 6 mile run on Saturday and a 17 mile run on Sunday.  I did both runs back to back and am very glad that I have them done.

As I was enjoying the first part of my vacation it was on my mind that I had this long run on the schedule and I also had to be sure I was eating and drinking appropriately.  I was enjoying some red wine by the fire the nights prior to the runs but made sure to be careful of how much I drank.  We have been cooking our meals at the house and those were also good food choices to fuel up for the long run.

My husband said he would get up early with me and head out on his bike while I did the run.  The main reason for this was because I was going out to run in an area that I wasn’t familiar with.  I wasn’t too worried about being out there alone, but the thought of some bears or a “wild animal” did cross my mind when I went out on my shorter runs earlier in the week.

I set my alarm for 6:00 a.m. but when it went off I completely blew it off and reset it for 6:30.  It was looking dark and grey out the window and I didn’t have to worry about trying to beat the sun and heat as much so I snoozed for an extra 30 minutes.  Then we got up, I had my toast and tea and hit the road around 7:20.  The weather was good, overcast, no sun and no rain.  The showers blew over as we were getting ready to head out so thankfully it stopped when we left.

The route was nice.  We followed the lake in an out and back route and then I went in an opposite direction but the route wasn’t the mileage that I had mapped out prior to our trip.  I became frustrated when we got to the end of the road I planned to go to and I saw that I still needed to get in 5 more miles which wasn’t the distance back to our house.  The distance back was just about 2 miles.  At that point I needed some sugar to my brain to help ward off the negative thoughts that were creeping in.  I told my husband that I needed some reinforcement.  He helped determine an alternate route to get in some mileage and then we headed back into the direction of the house.  I was concerned because the return trip back had a lot of hills.  Once on the return trip I just dug in my hills and sucked it up and pushed on.

I was done with trying to make up the mileage on the road and just wanted to get back so we headed back to our beach and I ran along the road and driveway of our vacation area and got in the last 1.5 miles there.

I’m glad the miles are now behind me.  I tried not to think about the fact that I did a little more than a half marathon and would have to do a full marathon after a half when we are doing the Dopey challenge in January.  I did think about Dumbo while I was out there.  That race is a 10K with a half the following day.  Today’s run was over a half but the weekend structure will be the same.  I am in good shape for the Dumbo Double Dare but I do still have many miles and training runs to put in for the Dopey Challenge.  I know I can do it.  It’s going to take a lot of work.