This morning  I woke up bright and early to put in my long run for the week.  Last Saturday I was scheduled for 4 miles, but pushed it to five.  Today it was a scheduled 5 miles, and I wanted to go out with the same attitude of pushing the distance a little more.   I am going to need that kind of mindset in order to mentally be ready for those longer runs in a few months, and when I run the White Rock Marathon in December.  Running is part physical and part mental.  The mental will make or break you faster than the physical! 

Last night I loaded up some new music on my iPhone.  The same stuff over and over tends to get stale and starts to un-inspire my running.  I added a new playlist, and moved over some fresher tunes.  Thanks to Pandora, I have been exposed to The Donnas, The Runaways, and more Joan Jett.  All this has a good beat and a hard edge that makes me just want to grind it out more when pounding the pavement.  Previously my playlist was more on the pop side, which worked for me for the while.  Change though is good.  That and since we are seeing Lady Gaga in a few weeks, I would really not like to be burned out on her! 

I wrangled with the playlist until it was past my bedtime, then hooked up my iPhone to backup and synch up everything. Anyone ever notice how SLOW this can be??  I left it to run while I slept, so I could wake up with it ready to go. 

When 5:15am came around, I staggered my sleepy butt into the livingroom to check for my new playlist, and lo and behold it did not take!  Argh!  I tried to synch it again, and had zero luck.  Long story short, I forgot to check “Manually Manage Music and Videos” in iTunes.  Good grief!   

After that was fixed the music moved over just fine.  I grabbed my gear and headed out the door to drive over to Katy Trail.  In my drive I realized that I forgot to eat a little something before leaving the house.  Good grief!  I ended up stopping at Exxon to buy a banana.  

Even though I had my little challenges, I still stayed the course and ran my route.  I don’t know why but the very beginning of my run always seems to be the hardest to push through.  It takes a while, usually longer in mornings, but once I reach a certain point I am good to go. 

Today was my first run in Supershoes II.  One thing I noticed is that my left foot slides down into the toe of my shoe. On mile five the underside of my big toe became a little tender.  On a longer run, this could spell disaster!  You see I have the luck of having different sized feet; one two sizes smaller than the other.  I can usually get by with one size shoe, but with running I am probably going to have to go with two different sizes.  

I talked to a rep with Nike on Twitter, and they informed me that Nike.com allows you to order independently sized shoes via NikeID, without the cost of buying two different pair.  No other shoe company does this, so I tip my hat BIG time to the folks at Nike for offering this service!  

So even though the iTunes stumbled, my pre-run meal was an improv banana, and my shoe bit my toe, I finished running 10K.  Today was the longest I have ever run.  I’m grateful to be given the strength to do this, and am on cloud nine! 

10K Saturday – it’s in the books, y’all! 

10k Saturday Smile