10 Miles is just a start

I can vividly remember a night last January. A fresh new year was ahead of us (how little did we all know 2012 would not be that awesome), and yet I was miserable. Nothing was wrong, but nothing was right. I was depressed. I was unmotivated. I was arguing with my husband and my kids were driving me insane. I was relying on my friends to make me happy, and I was annoying them because I had some crazy expectations - and I got crazy dramatic when those expectations didn't work out.
That January evening I made a huge decision. I decided to stop blaming everyone else for everything that I was upset about and make myself accountable to me. There were a few things I committed to: be happy. be healthy. make my kids proud. make myself proud. cut the drama.

And two weeks ago ... I realized just how far I came in a year. I ran a 10 mile race. For those keeping track at home, that's 16.1 km. And I did that race on the Sunday after I started a new job.
So a little bit on the race. Let me direct you to an awesome race report written by my friend Jodi.

Like pretty much every race I've done this year I signed up on a whim. I didn't know if I could do a 10 miler. I hadn't trained for that distance. But, I wanted to try it. So I signed up. The logic I used was that the worse that could happen was I would walk. No big.

The day of the race came. Oddly I wasn't stressed. I had support. I was meeting Jodi there. My friend Amy was also participating in the 5k walk (SHE CAME IN FIRST!!!).
My in-laws were there. My parents came. My husband's aunt and uncle came. My husband and kids were there. We had noise makers and signs. And I was feeling great.
What was that feeling? Oh right! It was confidence. As we were waiting for the race to start I was excited. I was ready to do this.
We started (a bit late) and we took off! Jodi and I wore our sparkle skirts so maybe that gave us the push, but it was a great start. I planned to start slow ... and in my mind I did. However, I wasn't slow at all. Awesome!
My race plan was to take it slow, pace myself and take breaks. I normally run 10 and 1's (meaning run 10 minutes walk 1 minute), but for the first couple kilometres I would walk as necessary as I warmed up. I was pretty good about following that. I set my running app to tell me every 10 minute interval and no matter how good I felt I walked.
I did the first 5k in under 30 minutes, and then kept going. Right around 8k I hit the wall. No shock. Whatsoever. Around 8k my feet go numb and i want to walk. I had the added panic of "wow! This is only halfway." There were two things going for me here. First, I anticipated this, and knew I could run through it. So I did. Somewhere in my hitting the wall bit someone came to compliment me on my skirt, and made me laugh.
On I went.

I felt awesome at 10k. My family was there. I was boiling so I took off my top shirt, and chilled for a second. I shockingly hit a sub-60 10 k, so I was feeling great. And then we hit the hard part. OMG!!! Since we didn't have a great map we didn't know the elevations. And as it turned out we were running uphill. We'd been running the first 10k with people who were just running 10 k not a 10 miler, so when they cut off to their finish I felt very alone. And running uphill. Except  ... I was so happy. All the fast runners were on their way back, I was close to 11k and I realized I only had 5k to go, I was doing awesome and I was doing this. I kept running and cheering for all the fast people. It's seriously awesome to watch the fast runners go.
This part got really challenging. There were trails and hills. I was dying. And yet I could do it.
And so I kept going. It sucked at parts and it was hard. But I'm so so so proud of myself.
And, here's the thing with this race. I didn't really have a time goal. I knew I could do it under 2 hours. So, my goal was run under 2 hours with my stretch (super awesome time) goal of 1 hour and 45 minutes.
My time??? 1 hour and 39 minutes!!!! Awesome.
The truth. I don't know if I would have done this if I didn't have the support. My friend Amy pushed me. And the day before on our Lululemon shopping trip she talked me out of my nerves. She believed in me.
And then there was Jodi. Do not underestimate how incredible it is to know that someone else is relying on your to show up, in a sparkle skirt no less, and run your heart out. There were no excuses. We did it.