A very stuffy 10-miler

Friday morning was a rare treat – Scott had the day off from work due to Good Friday. Of course, I wanted to take full advantage of his time (hehe, I’m sure he had other ideas for how he wanted to spend his morning off!) so we decided that Friday would be our long run day ‘o the week.

…despite the fact that we were both in the “snotty nosed” camp, so to speak. Both coming back from annoying-as-hell colds, but both really committed to getting through our first double-digit run together (since this summer!), regardless.

If I could sum up our run in pictures? This is what it would look like:

Let’s just say Scott called me out around mile 8 for being a “stubborn ass” (his words!) when he suggested we cut it to 9.5 miles vs. the full 10 (meaning skipping the final loop before turning down our street).

My response? “I said I’m doing 10, so I’m doing 10. You can go home if you want, but I’m finishing this thing!”

He shook his head (and probably had a nice little running tirade going on up in his head), but agreed to continue on. And I’m pretty sure we were both really glad we stuck it out — it was that final loop (the one Scott suggested we skip) where we both got a burst of energy and found some energy to kick it up the last hill before turning towards home.

And in the end, we did just what we said we were going to do.
…We ran 10 miles. We didn’t stop because we were tired. We stopped when we were done.

It wasn’t our fastest or our “best” by any stretch, but it was a proud 10-miles. It was an ego-tempering 10-miles, too. A really, really good reminder that no matter what – those “tough” runs are always lurking just around the corner, ready to teach you a thing or two.

A couple of lessons learned on this one?

• Three tissues is *not* enough. Seriously, what was I thinking? I used all three up right away. Duh. The rest of the run was spent snuffling along, annoyed as hell that I couldn’t breathe at.all. out of my nose. Hot.
• Side cramps are plentiful when mouth-breathing is all ya got. Given the tissue problem noted above, mouth breathing was my only option. Which left me fighting side cramps galore on this run. Excellent.
• Fuel and water is hard to manage when unable to breathe *and* when fighting side cramps. Have you ever tried to chew something with your mouth open to allow for breathing to occur while running? It’s a comedy show. I was trying to breathe, trying to chew, trying not to choke, and trying to keep my legs going without tripping. I am so cool.

Lesson learned – running while stuffy isn’t pretty, but it *can* be done.  Trust me on this.
<sniffle>