And I'm back!

I'm loving the fact that the sun is up at 5am!

Does this photo look a bit familiar?  It should.  It's the same hill I posted about last week, but taken from the area that is half way to the top.  The flat spot that your legs get some reprieve right before they are jolted back to reality... and the hills that seem like they are literally going straight up at times.  Up to this point, one could say the run was hard.  After this point, the run gets, hmmm... not impossible, but something that makes your lungs burn and your thighs turn to jelly.  You would swear you are running with 90 pound weights tied to your legs.  In fact, there was a walker lying on the ground there today... she had help from her friends, but you could tell she wasn't loving life!

I enjoyed my run here much more than last week.  I think my attitude was such last week that I knew I was going to hurt the next day, and I ended up dreading going.  I did hurt a little the next day, but not to the extent that I thought I would.  Not like last year when I remember my hips hurting for days afterwards.  I'm not dreading tomorrow at all, so I turned it all up a notch.  I went all the way up, all the way down, half way up, and back down.  A little over four miles total.  I was thrilled with my 11:07 pace.  I improved from the cautious 11:21 of last week.  Now if I would just let myself really run going downhill it would greatly improve!

Now I'll be honest.  I hurt.  I had to do some serious talking to myself to get through those last couple of switchbacks.  And I really had to talk sternly to myself about turning around at the bottom and starting over again... even though I knew I was only going 1/2 way that time, I knew I wasn't fresh and it would be horrible hard.  I gained a little enthusiasm by seeing the (probably? I'm bad with ages!) 55 year old man who was starting out about the same time I started the second time.  His running seemed effortless.  If only I could run this hill that way!

New goal... by the end of the summer, be able to run up and down all the way twice.  A lot of this is mental.  I know it's in me somewhere, I just have to find the motivation to get my body to do what it has the potential to do!

How do you change your attitude and gain motivation when running gets hard?  I'd love to hear what others do!

As my Runner's World quote of the day email said this morning..."Every day is a good day when you run. "  (Kevin Nelson, The Runner's Book of Daily Inspiration)  Hope you have a fabulous running weekend!