Tough Run

I'm glad for this, actually, glad for an unexpectedly difficult run on Saturday. Well, not entirely unexpected: I'd spent the better part of both Thursday and Friday struggling with sinus congestion, fatigue, and not the best sleep. I'm still not sure if it's allergies or some kind of late summer cold. In either case, I was definitely not at my best when I woke up early for our long run.

The plan was to run seventeen miles. Weather could not have been more accommodating, and the route was a nice, mostly familiar path that started north of Lake of the Isles, then moved down the chain of lakes, past Calhoun and then along Harriet before returning back up to our starting point.

And the lakes really were spectacular. Gorgeous water, gorgeous sun. Made a point of trying to notice those things, to smile, breathe, and go slowly.

But not even halfway into the run, I was wiped. Ran most of the way to Harriet with Rosie and Heather, joining up with Sanjiv and April near Calhoun. They split off at the south end of Harriet to add a few more miles along Minnehaha Parkway. I knew that I didn't want to add any more miles than necessary, so I kept on, making my way back alone.

In marked contrast to the previous weekend, when I'd felt like I could have kept going after 18 miles, I had to stop and walk several times on the way back. Just couldn't catch my breath. Wasn't even running all that fast; just didn't have anything left in the tank over the last five or six miles.

And when all is said and done, I'm glad for days like this. It was a struggle. It reminds me that there will be bad days, days when you find things to be much harder than you'd like, or than you're used to. It fits the analogy, again, for both leukemia and life: there will be both good days and bad days, and it's how you respond to the bad days that helps to define the quality of your character.

Yesterday, I struggled through fifteen miles in just about three hours, including plenty of water stops and walking breaks. But I did it. Got my long run in this weekend (even if it fell a couple of miles short of my original goal).

It feels so much better, today, to have pushed my way through the fatigue to finish that run than it would have felt to have skipped the run altogether.