An accidental 8 miles?

The Accidental 8 Mile Run

How do you run 8 miles by accident? Get lost? Miscalculate your route? Possibly, but neither were the reason for our 8.29 miles tonight. This time it was pure stubbornness.

I have a very fluid and flexible running schedule. If i feel like running 2 miles on a 6 mile night or 7 miles on a 2 mile night, I'll do it. I had an 8 miler on the schedule for tonight as a challenge. I liked the look of the number on the chart, so I stuck it on there. We ( my husband Marc and I) have been talking about running long miles this year, and i thought now is the perfect time to start. Also, I had set a mileage goal for the week and knew I wouldn't make it without a long run tonight since I'm heading out of town this weekend. (mom/daughter girls weekend - more on that later)

So the schedule said we were doing 8 miles tonight. Marc wasn't all that thrilled with it because it was cold and windy and a long way to go. His reluctance made me want to do it all the more. I tend to be pushy when it comes to our running, getting out there more often, longer and farther than he would go if it were up to him. Kind funny coming from the girl who used to say I wasn't made to be a runner.

What I wasn't going to tell him was I wasn't feeling all that great and wasn't sure I wanted to do the whole 8 either. My plan was to go out and see how it felt and let the run go as far as it wanted. Since we run laps around our neighborhood, it's easy to cut it short if we want to. We're out there running and Marc's commenting on how cold he was or how many more laps we had to go. I told him he could stop at any point and i would finish on my own. But he wouldn't. I'm thinking my stomach is hurting and not feeling that great and almost dreading the next laps. But i wouldn't stop either.

So there we were. Me going on because i had been making such a big deal out of going the 8 miles and not wanting to wimp out on him. Him going on because he didn't want to wimp out on me or make me run by myself. So we accidentally, or maybe it should be stubbornly, did all 7 laps for a total of 8.29 miles.

We didn't really want to do it, but we did. And despite it all, we felt pretty good after what turned out to be our longest run on the road. A little tired and sore, but it's a good kind of tired and sore. And i have a major sense of accomplishment that i pushed myself and met my planned goal, even when I didn't feel like it.