A lot of thoughts when into my mind starting Friday night leading up to the moment I arrived at Lady Bird Lake Hike and Bike Trail to "test" the 10 mile look. After two weekends of putting it off (one reason was because it was days after the big flood that happened down in Austin and the second reason is that after going to Fun Fun Fun Fest on Friday, I woke up with an allergy headache from all the dust), I finally set my alarm and decided Saturday (11/16) was going to be the day. I did my usual morning routine when I go running on Saturdays, except this time the dogs took a little longer to do their business so I did not get out of the house until about 6:30 a.m. I made sure to have a pot of coffee and I grabbed a banana as I headed out the door. Walking to my car, I noticed how crazy the clouds were looking and I almost forgot we were supposed to get some rain. I don't remember what the chances were, but as I drove down to Austin (I live in Cedar Park which is about 22 miles NW), I saw some sprinkles land on my windshield. Very set on not turning around, I decided to drive all the way down there. Worst case scenario, I could time my drive for the next time if I ended up getting there and it was pouring rain. Much to my amazement, there were tons of runners and the weather was decent. Not only was it decent, it was better than I expected. As most of you know, lately, I've been running WITHOUT music and for some reason it has been working. What I did was set my RunKeeper app, I had my iPod shuffle on and also my watch. Since I had a bit of technical difficulties with my Garmin watch, I decided to walk across the MoPac pedestrian bridge and start on the south side. Once I got there, I was ready to go. No music, just my mine concentrating on breathing, listening to my body and legs as each foot hits the floor. Mind you, I've never been on a run for more than 6.25 miles so mentally I went in there with the fact that I would be doing a lot of walking and not to be mad at myself if that happened. Little did I know how my body would take such a long run. When I got to about mile 5, I needed a bathroom break. Thankfully there was a bathroom, WITHOUT A DOOR, so I had to put the garbage pail in the way. After that, I felt good and continued to run. Checking out the scenery, I started to get to familiar ground, which was where I usually do my 3 mile loops. I couldn't believe it. I looked at my watch and I was at mile 8. Nothing felt better than knowing that, especially since I wasn't as tired as I thought I was. I did do small little stops, but when I continued, my body just kept wanting to run, so I let it, without exerting myself too much to burn all my energy. Once I got to about where Lamar was, I could see that breaks were coming more and more frequent. I took about a 5 minute walk and then the end was close. Finally getting to the point where I couldn't run anymore, I stopped my watch and looked at it. 9.13 miles of ACTUALLY RUNNING. Just running more than 6.25 miles, I felt like it was quite the accomplishment. I can't wait to try it again!
As seen on my run, the lovely photos of Austin, Texas and also my shoes -- wanted to show how they got so dirty from the trail.
'Till next time!
