Lonely Run and A Gift

This weekend was the first "long" run of the half marathon group.  It's an optional run that they encourage you to do, and non-members can also tag along for free.   They have one mid-week as well, but since we were only running 3K that time I decided to run at home on my own rather than driving 45 minutes return for such a short run.  I've gone to these drop-in runs before with friends before, but never on my own.

Let's say it was .... interesting!

I had no problem finding my group this time, and the leader came up to me right away with the "instructions" for our route ... should we get lost.  He seems to be a very nice man and so far I'm happy to have him as a leader.

We started out as a fair sized group (20??), crossed the street and WHAM!!!  The leader of the group was looking down for a second and whacked his head on a Pizza Hut sign.  See, fast food IS bad for you!  He took off his hat and there was quite the gush of blood.  He is training for a full and had run to meet us, so someone offered to drive him to the hospital where he ended up with 4 stitches on the top of his head.

So, we were on our own, which was fine really since we had the route anyway.  But, in the whole mix-up of things, the group got really split up.  Within minutes I found myself running completely alone.  There was people way up in front of me and a few way behind me.  And with every traffic light the distance seemed to get farther and farther in both directions.  I ended up running the whole 7K completely on my own.

I don't mind running on my own at all, but if I'd known I was going to be alone anyway I would have gone to one of my more preferred running spots.  Running through the city on my own is NOT my idea of fun AT ALL!  I'm hoping it was just due to what happened, but will give it a few more weeks and hopefully it's better.

The run was super hot, and the first half was a lot of uphill.  We were supposed to be doing 10 and 1's, but on the second half I was a bit out of steam and did more like 5 and 1's.  I forgot my Garmin (the sin of all sins among runners) so had to just guess since I had no one around to follow.

After the run the strangest thing happened.  I got back to the store and was just stretching out, a little chit chat with a few other runners.  There was probably about 30 of us there.  I looked up and saw this older man walk across towards me.  He walks right up and says:

The moments that challenge us the most, 

are the moments that define us 

and make us stronger than we ever thought we could be ... 

I got a feeling you needed to hear that.

Cue "chin drop" and "chills".  It was the weirdest thing ever, but actually comforting.  Some people really have a gift.  He said he was going through some things himself and that quote helps him.  How he thought I needed to hear that I don't know.  Eerie!

I know it's only been a few runs, but I feel like I'm not fighting it so much as I was in the past.  I'm enjoying my days off, and kind of looking forward to the upcoming planned runs.  I don't care at all about my pace, nor about reaching or exceeding any specific distances.  I'm just plodding along following the plan.  It seems to be right where I need to be.

Heidi

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