Day 3,881-2 —Birthday Run 2024—

 

accepting it might be just a half-marathon. Both of my kids were sick last night, so getting ready for this run wasn’t the priority. They stayed home today, and they’re fine, but they both have coughs, and my daughter was dealing with ear pain last night.

         My wife and I plan to take the day off work, so we could do something to celebrate my birthday today since we couldn’t on Tuesday, but that wasn’t going to happen now with both of the kids being sick. I wasn’t motivated to run for that reason and I had slept in on Thursday because I got up at 2 and felt sick, so I wasn’t feeling amazing either.

         I was so close to going to bed after both of my kids went to sleep. I was falling asleep reading to my daughter and part of me just thought maybe I just need to accept that it isn’t going to work tonight. It also was cold, and I wasn’t motivated to run in the dark and the cold.

When the time came to go to bed, I took a bath, thinking if I was going to do this I would at least try to feel better before I started.

I convinced myself to go out and do something at 1 a.m. I had been sleeping in the bath and wasn’t crazy about going outside in the sub-20-degree weather, but I also had this 100-mile run coming up in January, and I needed to train.

When I started, I was miserable and going so slow, it felt like I was never going to get close to 39 miles at this pace. I went back home after only 3.x miles changed clothes and went back out after taking my time at my house drying my hair.

It was slow-going all the way up until about 7 a.m. when I was 21 miles in and feeling a little better that I had gotten some miles done before everyone woke up, but at the same time, I was looking at my clock and was thinking at this pace I would be doing this until the afternoon.

The sunrise was beautiful, red, orange, and pink. I got a couple of pictures, but I knew they wouldn’t do it justice. It was a little too dark for it to look, right, but I can try.

After seeing everyone at my house, I was determined to be done with this run, so I ran without stopping for water or any other reason until I hit 39 miles. I did have to walk some when I was about to hit 36, but otherwise, I was fine. I was in pain in my foot, my hip, and my knee, but it didn’t feel like serious pain.

When I was closing in on 39, I was in disbelief that I was pulling this off. There were so many reasons to not stay up all night and run 39 miles, but I found enough reasons to go out that I made it through.

It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t easy to get any run in yesterday. I was off all day, not running in the morning like planning. My wife just thought maybe I was planning on starting at 10 p.m., which I have done once before, but I would rather just run separately when I can, so all day I was looking for the right moment to get a mile plus in, and it didn’t happen to almost 8 p.m. and I did not feel good after that run, and I was trying to convince myself that I was going to run for 39 miles after doing that?

Now, most of the night is a blur but I kind of remember the book I was listening to and some of the more miserable moments. I also remember how quiet it was and how even though it was cold, I was still able to keep going forward. I don’t know what I am going to do differently in the Shippey but maybe just go slower to start, which does make it hard to catch up and beat my previous time, but I have to do what is best for each race, and stop comparing my results to my previous attempts.