I had a blog post all ready to go about how running is nothing but a struggle these days for a lot of people. Mainly due to the heat and humidity we’ve been having in Nova Scotia (NB, PEI etc.). I’ve seen people posting their struggles: slower paces, running early before the sun rises, changing routes to avoid the sun, wanting to quit, and dealing with heat exhaustion. That last one was all on me and my own mistakes. My goodness it’s been HARD running. That is until last night. Oh, and I deleted that other post 😉

I had 8k on my training schedule. I lined up my babysitter {yes, I paid someone so I could just go run for an hour}. Before I laced up, I couldn’t figure out what to wear….tank top, t-shirt…really, would I need a long-sleeved shirt? Was it “that cold” outside?

I decided on a tank top (racer back) and shorts. No hydration pack, no GU’s. I laced up and just started running. The air was cool, the sun was not shining but the sky was full of grey clouds and there was a little sprinkle in the air.

As I hit my first 1km out of 8, I noticed 6:10 on my watch….a number I’ve not seen in a while! I figured I should slow down a bit as I was really wanting to run 9k for some reason.

I kept running and saw 5:57 for km  #2. Woah bessie, slow down would ya! Then 6:10; 6:07; 6:02 at the 5km mark. Oh yeah, somewhere in there I decided to run 10k. At the turn around point, I just kept running and was feeling really good. I knew I had a long incline ahead of me and would slow down a bit.

6:17; 6:10; 6:05 – where were these numbers coming from? I was just running 6:30-6:45 the other day!I figured I would be close to a sub 60 10k and started pushing it around the 7k mark.

5:54 and then 5:32 – my fastest km this year and it started going up a good hill. I’ll be honest, I broke down in tears at the end of this run. I was a bit of a sobbing mess for a few minutes and was thankful it was getting dark outside, therefore that meant no one was out on my street.

As I composed myself, I started to cry again. WTF? Why was I crying? Seriously!!!! I didn’t fall down, I didn’t hurt, I didn’t hurt anyone else, so why was I crying?

Honestly, I think I was crying as I felt relief! Relief that I can run fast again after being injured for so long. Relief that I do still love to run. Relief that I’m not going to do so bad Sept 12th at my half marathon. Relief that I can push myself really hard and see results.

THAT RUN JUST FELT SO GOOD!

I may have not run a race last night. I may have not got my sub 60 10k last night but I felt like that run was SUCH A WIN for me after a hard 6-9 months of painful days with my hamstring and working hard to get stronger.

Thank you running……..this girl needed last night’s run.

Anyone else have a great run last night? 

What’s your most recent “win/success” besides a personal best/record ?

Anna