Feb 9

Feb 9 Family first. Minus four.

Well, today was tough. Last nights post was written while driving home from the Bay Area. We didn’t get home until 2AM and my goal was to be up by 6AM to do my long run. I woke up at 6 and was ready to go by 7. Thats when all hell broke loose. My oldest boy, who had very little sleep as well was not feeling good. Ultimately, I didn’t get out of the house until around 830AM. Thank goodness for my wife. She basically kicked me out to go run because she knew I would be miserable the rest of the day if I didn’t go.

The bummer was that we had another birthday party to go to in the afternoon so I knew I wasn’t going to get my full run in. The plan for today was an easy 24 miles. That typically takes about a little over 4 hours. I needed to be back to the house by 1PM. That math didn’t add up. So, plan B was to push for 20 miles. If I could get there I would have 50 miles for the week.

Normally I am the only car in the parking lot when I show up to run. When I got there today the lot was full. There were about 14 billion mountain bikers out there. My normal route was blocked due to a moutain biking race. All of this didn’t stop me. I was bummed and mentally I wasn’t ready but I kept on going. There were some really nice people and some beautiful sites along the way. It wasn’t that amazing early morning light but it was still peaceful.

I pushed to get the distance I needed but struggled towards the end. The last 5 miles or so were SO hard. I wanted to stop so many times but kept on pushing myself to get it done. The reality is I set my self up to have to finish the distance by running out as far as I did. I could have turned back earlier and cut things short but I went out 10 miles which made me have to come back 10 miles. If I had the out I am not sure I would have done it.