RUNme

Today's 16 miler was pretty tough. Ran with Bill Ben Tyler Harris Greg Kendig Dan Molinar (Jared Ryan and Kenny for the first 3.5 miles).  I felt decent the first few miles but i had my doubts as to whether or not id feel better after awhile of running.  I started to feel kinda bad on heisley with the two big hills, but i told myself it was just the hills and once they're behind me ill be fine, which was true.  Once we turned onto jackson i felt much better, and Jared (freshman coming in) Kenny and Ryan turned around.  We eventually started talking about cross country, everything from states to glen oak to upper body strength.  It was a good discussion, and it lasted until around 7 or 8 miles.  It was at this point that i started to feel tired.  Once we got near the Morton Salt Mine, i really started to feel tired all of the sudden but i sucked it up and we took a quick break outside the zimmerman trail.  Eventually Bill got tired of getting bit by the bugs so we headed into the woods (sounds stupid, but they can't land on you if you're running).  I still felt kinda crappy and i was just doing anything mentally to focus on just breaking the rest of the run into pieces.  Eventually i was breaking just the trail just into pieces, which actually ended up helping.  I remembered to try to keep relaxed and use my arms which helped me keep my breathing fairly in check.  I could tell everyone else was at least somewhat fatigued too, cuz noone was talking and they were breathing fairly hard.  Eventually the woods ended and we stopped one last time to regroup and rehydrate.  We walked for like 45 seconds after we got water, then started running again, with about 3 3/4 miles to go.  I felt a little better now, and i realized my stomach was cramping whith was forcing the rest of my body to fatigue, but i continued to run.  Eventually the pace got back down into the 7:15 range, pretty good pace considering we were 12 1/4 miles into a 16 miler.  Once we hit the marsh trail i felt a little bit better again, and eventually i told myself that my constant worrying about finishing with the group and all these other wimpy thoughts were stupid, and i became determined to just suck it up and finish the run without a problem.  This change in my mental attitude really helped me get through the trails.  Once we got out we had just over a mile to go, and i told myself to just get to the half mile left mark, which was actually pretty tough since i was getting to that all to familiar pure exhaustion state.  But i once told myself id never let that affect me again, so that also motivated me.  Once we got back on hopkins, i realized we would be well under 2 hours for the 16 miles.  We hit veterans and started picking it up a bit, and once we hit the straightaway we all picked it up one last time into a confortable fast-but-not-sprinting pace.  Our time was i think 1 hour 57 minutes 27 seconds.  As soon as we finished the run, we headed over to eat frozen grapes and drink gatorade, which we all ate and drank so much we all felt like puking.  I devoured 2 vines of grapes in maybe 2 minutes along with 4 or 5 cups of gatorade.  It was that wierd feeling where you feel terrible and extremely happy at the same time.  I was just glad i mentally pushed through the kind of run that used to eat me alive for some reason.