Day 3,801 —20 more Miles to Go—

 

         When I woke up everyone was still asleep, but my son decided to get up at 5 and by 6 my daughter was up watching the sunrise. I carried her down the street before I started my run, and we watched the sunrise together.

         “Wow, so pretty!” She said.

I wasn’t sure where to go, so I followed a whim and ran by a family of deer. I watched one, two, and finally three cross the street and eat leaves. I walked slowly and faced them. I turned and saw one more deer who had decided to wait on the other side of the street. I saw a car approaching and so I waited, thinking my presence might slow the car down if they didn’t see the deer. The deer scattered, and the car was moved slowly past. 

         I went by the track in the Webster Grove Community Center. They finished rebuilding it, but the gate was locked the last time I was there, but today it was opened, and I was so excited to be able to run on a track again!

My feet could use a break from the uneven pavement, so I got into a routine of sprinting one section of each lap. After a while, I decided I wanted to get back to a sub-8-minute pace. It wasn’t going to be easy because I started the run not caring about time, so I was at a little over 20 minutes when I finished two miles. By the first hour, I had finished almost 6.5 miles. At the end of the second hour, I was at 14.5 miles, I was close now, but it could go either way, and part of me wanted to give up, but I kept pushing on, and I made it at mile 19.