Overflow.

Seriously, my brain is so full of a million things that I want to write about that I have no clue where to even begin.  Bear with me people because I have a feeling tonight's blog is gonna be a bit coo coo bird. 

I'll start at the beginning.......

After my 8 mile treadmill run on Friday, I knew that my Sunday run was gonna have to be outdoors.  It's cool, I've come to terms with the fact no matter how far I can run on a treadmill, it will never end with a bumper sticker or free t-shirt..  Actually, here's a thought.....If you run 13.1 on a treadmill at the gym with no one watching, does it still count as running a half marathon?  Probably not, right?  Moving on....

I set out on today's run with a 4 to 5 mile course mapped, pending on how I felt.  FYI, I use mapmyrun.com since I don't have a fancy pants GPS watch (helloooooo, Hubs....Christmas is soon upon us...hint, hint).  Anywho, as I'm walking out the door my dear Hubs yells to me "hey, if you're feeling good then just keep running"....and so I think to myself, "Thank you Hubs for that last minute boost of confidence, but I RARELY decide to run farther than planned" and head out the door.  As I'm literally stepping out the door I remember that one of my bestest friends from San Diego, Tara,  is running her half off today, so I shoot her a quick "good luck" text and so begins the #1 motivating factor for todays run. 

Tara and I have been friends from the moment we met. A couple months back Tara began her journey to run her 1st half with her college besties (who are awesome sauce by the way) and raise money for a wonderful charity Glimmer of Hope.  This was my first glimpse into the world of half marathon domination....HA, okay so maybe it was just what started the wheels turning in my mind.  Regardless, if one of my closest friends who was the same age as me, married, had 2 kids...etc, etc, etc could run a half, then why couldn't I?  If I had still lived in SD at the time then I probably would have joined her on her journey anyway.  At least I like to think I would have joined her.  

So, while I was running today I really took time to reflect on all the people in my life that helped to inspire and motivate me, whether they knew it or not.  It's so super cheesy, but I pushed myself to run 8 miles today because I was thinking about Tara who was running 13.1.  She wasn't gonna quit, so I wasn't going to either. 

The first couple miles are always the worst for me, but once I got past mile 3 it was smooth sailing.  I was able to clear my mind of all the "quitter" thoughts and focus on all the inspiring people/situations in my life....such a sap tonight, right?  I'm not too familiar with the mythical "runner's high", but if I had to guess then I would say that I had one today.  My mind was racing a mile a minute with positive, motivating thoughts and running just came naturally.  Weird!

I really hope that I'm able to channel all these positive thoughts for my next run, but I won't hold my breathe......