Yesterday I wasn’t feeling well. I took some NyQuil and sucked on cough drops all night. This morning I felt like I had been drugged. All morning I kept thinking about what, if anything, I would post when I didn’t run at lunch. Suddenly it was lunchtime. I wasn’t feeling drugged anymore, but I certainly wasn’t feeling better. Still, I decided I would at least walk my route, so I went downstairs and changed into my running clothes.

I figured I would run until the first hill and then walk. I got to the first hill and I saw two other runners ascending the other road to the top… and I knew they saw me, so I had to make it to the top, and I had to be first (I’m not competitive at all). That didn’t solve my problem. There I was at the top, with the other runners closing in. I had to keep running so I could stay ahead. I figured I would need to run at least until the big park in the middle of The Cedars.

When I got to the park and rounded the corner, I could see that both of the other runners had not followed me into The Cedars. I didn’t need to run anymore to appease my ego, but I just kept running anyway. It was really nice outside, what I consider the perfect weather for running – around 50 degrees and mostly cloudy with a slight breeze. I passed the 1 mile marker with no trouble and headed down through mile 2.

I usually run some segments on the street and other segments on the sidewalk. I realized that I have always been running on the sidewalk when I run up hills. I thought I might be doing that to give myself some sort of crutch, in case I switched to walking during the climb. Today I decided I would turn the corner by the church near the mile 2 checkpoint and stay on the road. It’s a big hill, and I almost always walk part of it… always on the sidewalk. Staying on the road was a commitment to run to the top of the hill. I wanted to get out of that commitment about half way up the hill, but I stuck with it until the corner at Sycamore. At that point I walked up the short hill on Sycamore, on the sidewalk, as you probably guessed.

At the top of that short hill I started running again. Soon I was smiling. I wasn’t having any trouble running, despite how I had been feeling earlier. I knew I was going to run the rest of the way home. I knew it would be a good time. I wasn’t sure if it would be another record, because I didn’t know if I had been running slower than my normal pace up to that point, but I was very happy. I pushed a little harder that last mile and really felt good.

31:42

One of the reasons I was able to convince myself to run today is that I probably won’t be running tomorrow. A bunch of the guys I know from FamilyLink and Ryati are going out to the west side of Utah Lake to shoot some guns over lunch. It will be fun. I’ll enjoy it more knowing that I ran so well today.