Last night’s run was different for me. I didn’t go into it wondering about my ability to finish. I went into it wondering about my desire to do it.

My afternoon just wasn’t great. I was stressed, unhappy, depressed even. This itself is unusual for me, but it was an even more unusual degree of these feelings. Of course, this was why I knew I was going to do the workout, even though I just wanted to go home and eat ice cream. Even if I ended up crying through the whole run, I knew it would feel better afterward.

So here’s what I did: 1.6 mi warm-up, 1 mile @ 8:34, .5 mile jog, 1 mile @ 8:34, .5 mile jog, 1 mile @ 8:27, .5 mile jog, 1 mile @ 8:27, 1 mile cool-down. That last mile was pretty tough, but I made it through. The day had actually started with me in a good mood and thinking I could do the miles even faster than planned. With as bad of a mood as I was in, I’m still pretty excited that I did as well as I did.

The run did get some bad, nasty thought out of my head. Plus it left me so exhausted that I had no chance to go back to them before going to bed. Am I glad I did it? Of course. Am I equally as glad that, other than my long runs, the rest of the next two weeks are easy with no mile intervals or tempo runs? Yep!