The key to 8 miles is distraction!

Yesterday morning, I conquered my dreaded 8 miles.  For the past few weeks, while I was working out the schedule adjustments with the Level 1/Level 2 combo/switch, I was experiencing intense doubts of both confidence and capability... as in I was confident that I was not capable of running 8 miles.

Maybe it was maintaining my mileage during the week but drastically bringing the long run mileage down.

Maybe it was successfully running a tiny bit over 7 last weekend and although I nearly fainted from not hydrating enough, I felt like I could run forever.

Maybe it was all of the Olympic coverage of the marathoners and distance runners-- if they can run 10,000 kilometers and not even break a sweat, surely I can run 8 miles at a slower pace than normal.

Maybe (more likely than any other reason) it was the fact that I knew at some point, people were going to get sick of hearing me say "Oh yea... I'll get to 8... soon.  Just gotta work up the endurance a little more!  Almost there!"

So with that in mind, I headed to the gym yesterday morning to face my demons.  Now, I'd like to take a moment to reiterate how intensely I dislike the treadmill.  With a passion.  Of a million fires and all of that jazz.  Running on a belt and staring at the wall is incomparable to getting outside and having constantly changing scenery to distract you.  I knew that if I was going to survive the run, I had to bring in the big guns:

That's right.  Two episodes of Lorelai and Rory Gilmore coached me through my run on my Kindle.  And I gotta tell you, the miles FLEW by.  It's important to me to run outside as much as possible since the marathon is obviously not run on a treadmill, but it's nice to know that when the going gets tough, I can bring in the crew from Stars Hollow to pep it up.

Positives from this past week?  Very little soreness, even though I racked up a total of 22 miles, which is crazy to even think about having run.  Also, 8 miles equals 1252 calories burned-- yes to that!

Negatives? The humidity.  And I tried Gu Chomps, watermelon flavored.  The pro was that I loved the flavor and didn't have issues with an aftertaste or anything.  Con?  I nearly choked/suffocated trying to chew, swallow, and breathe all at once.  Doing this while sitting, yes.  While running?  Add it to my list of "Things I must get used to."

On the schedule for this week...
M: 4 easy miles
T: 4 mile Fartlek
W: Rest
Th: 3 mile tempo run + 1-2 mile WU/CD
F: XT 60 minutes
S: 9 mile long run

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