Snow day

The 10 miler yesterday was the hardest run of the season so far. Took me longer than I expected. The course near Preston/Fall City was interesting. The course had a couple of up and down sections that made it a little tougher but not too bad. The only hard part of the course were a set of switchback turns up a steep hill. My legs were burning after that section.

From past experience, the trickiest part was staying warm. As usual I didn't wear enough clothing. With the weather this week, I should have know better. It was snowing when we started running and it alternated between snow and a fine misty drizzle during the run. I was warm, even hot, with the North Face fleece I've been using to run this winter. During the second half, I could not do anything to stay warm. I didn't pack enough gels and I ran out of gas at about 9 miles. I probably burned up more calories running out in the cold.

One section sticks in my mind vividly, there was a steep hill about two miles before the end. Me and J were hurting up that hill. Coach meets us half way to tell us that we can make it up the hill. That this separates the men from the boys. He mentions the Lance Armstrong quote about "pain being transitory"*. I don't remember the rest because I blocked everything out to focus on getting to the top.

I'm grateful for hard days like this one. I'm going to face more hard days. Every time I get done with a day like this, I know I can deal with anything down the line. Plus it's nothing compared to what cancer patients deal with. I rather run in a blizzard than go through what they go through.

*  From wikipedia, this is the quote:
"Pain is temporary, it may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. "