What Would Buffy Do?

Today I ran 10 miles.

I dropped off my kids at daycare (I had the day off for Spring Break) and went to a local trail.

Here I am before I started:

Yes that was in the bathroom at the park.

I have to admit. I was scared. I halfway didn't want to commit to 10 miles in case I couldn't do it. I ran a 5K Thursday, so I didn't know how it would go (I'm not up to that "Run 20 miles then do 11 'recovery' miles the next day" level yet...). But I announced several times on Facebook and to anyone who would listen that I was running 10 miles today, just to make it harder to quit...

I set my playlist to one Buffy episode: "Once More with Feeling." I knew it would take longer than 50 minutes, so I included a Two Gomers episode as well. I set the Nike+ to tell me every quarter mile (I need constant updates).

After posing for a few photos in the bathroom, I got started. I planned to run 4/ walk 1... about 1000 times. Early on, it was already feeling challenging.. but after a few miles, the 240 seconds of running seemed to go faster (so did the 60 seconds of walking).

It was a beautiful day, but I have to admit, I thought about stopping several times. At about 4.5 miles, I went to the car to put my gloves away and get more water, and I ate half of a P90X protein bar.

At 5 miles, I started to think that maybe I could do it. I restarted "Once More with Feeling" and sang along. I'm sure the runners and walkers I passed wondered what was wrong with me...

At 7.5 miles, I started to think I was about to die. My legs were heavy, and I'm sure there were some walkers who passed me as I shuffled as fast as I could during my running intervals.

At 8.75 I started to see the end. 1.25 miles to go. My running intervals started to have a few walk breaks. I had a little discussion with myself- if I ran faster, it would be done sooner... but I physically couldn't run faster. I was so tired.

Here I am right before the voice told me I had 1 mile to go, I took this picture:

This is so hard!

 You better believe I stopped the very second the voice said "Congratulations! You have reached your goal!" In fact, I think I only heard "Con-" before stopping..

Well, this was an eye-opener. I think it was sheer will that got me through it. Technically, most half-marathon training plans have your final training run as 10 miles, and you just count on endorphins and excitement to get you through that last 5K. But I honestly didn't feel like I could run 3 more miles after that, even if David Boreanaz himself was waiting at the finish line...

But, the good news is this: The race is 7 weeks from tomorrow. I can get more comfortable with this distance by then.

So I went home and took an ice bath, which was very short and uncomfortable. All the housework I was going to do didn't get done... I lay in bed all day. I really don't think I could do this distance on a day when I actually have to do stuff... well, not yet.

Angel is proud of me...