Please Tell Me It's Not That Hard

This last weekend was a sad one. We had to say goodbye to my cousin Julie, her husband Bill and their adorable baby Ryan as they left for Sacramento. Then we celebrated away my last little niece's babyhood by attending her first birthday party. Because I had house guests and didn't feel like running my neighborhood again on Saturday morning (for the umpteenth time) Bryan and I decided to go to a local park the next day where I could run on the marathon/bike path and he could entertain the boys for however long I decided to torture myself.

Well I wore my little pedometer so I could know approximately how far I was going since I wasn't too familiar with the area and started off. Let's just say that going West - not too hard. Easy jog, wind at my back (ya, remember that) and pleasant weather. Turn around and head East back to the start and all of a sudden there's that whooshing sound of the wind, and it's powerful enough to slightly dismantle one of my Ipod earpieces. As I struggled against the wind the entire way, I eventually got back to the start thinking for SURE I'd run at LEAST 5 miles. Nope. 3. THREE!!! Folks, the half marathon is a little over 13!!! So I ran more and more and more and came back to the start. 5.8 miles. It was at this time that I saw Bryan after he got back from taking the boys to breakfast. I could tell he was sort of done with the whole "watching the kids in the park" thing so I told him - "I'm not running 10, but let me at least get to 8." I had to run the entire first leg of my "small marathon" again and when I came back, my pedometer showed 8.05. Thank you, God - for small miracles. Why is it that I can run 11 miles around my house and 8 on the bike path? It must have been the Santa Ana winds - and I think the fact that I was keeping my hubby waiting. That makes the time CRAWL.

So.....I'm going to try again and bring water with me this time. I'm not all into the 'running alone' thing (and neither is Bryan), but I hear that there are a lot of 'marathoners' there in the mornings on the weekend. It should be safe. Let's hope so since I'll be practically running to Irvine and back (slight exaggeration). I'm trying to make this an exciting, reachable goal. It doesn't help when I watch the Tyra show (I never watch it, but caught 10 minutes yesterday) and see this woman who is a single mom because her husband died after jogging one day. She called him and 'avid jogger.' I won't think about that.

I can DO this..... it's really not that hard once I get going. It's the starting that's the hard part. Once you get past 4 miles or so, your body just goes by itself...sort of.