accidentally awesome

Today's training run was awesome. It was tough, but overall it was great. The weather was cooler than it has been, and the route was great. I saw parts of the city I've never seen before.

We ran past the Children's Hospital on Brook Road, and it reminded me of my students. So many of them go there for therapies or even just to go to the dentist. I've always wondered where it was. It reminded me of them, and the fact that they can't run. It reminded me partly of why I run, for those who can't.

We ran past Kuba Kuba on Park Avenue, and it reminded me of where this whole marathon journey started. That's the restaurant we went to after the Monument Avenue 10k, where we sat, ate and got so excited from such a high on that race, talking about running the marathon.

We ran past The Cathedral, it was beautiful. We ran up Floyd, actually a little too far on Floyd. Somehow we missed our turn onto Sheppard, I don't know how this happened. By the time we realized we were off the route we knew we had added at least a mile onto the run, and since this was a 12 mile run, I figured that at the end I had run my first half marathon, accidentally.

I wanted to walk so bad at the end, but I had to run into the Sports Backers Stadium. Some of my coaches were there with the best watermelon I've ever had in my entire life, as well as cold wet towels that felt like heaven. And I felt awesome. My legs hurt and I was tired, but I felt so awesome.

When I got home I went to www.mapmyrun.com, and confirmed that I had in fact ran a half marathon. 13.43 miles to be exact. I am so ready for the Patrick Henry Half in 2 weeks!!!!

On a side note I also discovered that gu is not my friend. I had tried some gel on an earlier run and it was okay, so I decided to try some gu on this run. I gagged on it. Had to spit it out, yuck. Next week I will be trying a different fuel source.