Well, thanks everyone for liking my previous status update and checking out my new self hosted blog over at Brownie Runs. But if you’ve been over there, you know nothing works. Sigh. So frustrating.
I freelance in social media, which is a part of why I got into blogging. I enjoy writing and thought that chronicling my running journey would be fitting. Over the past few months, I’ve met several bloggers that have gone self hosted and monetized their blogs. I thought this might be a good idea, if anything to build relationships with my favorite brands. Switching has been a steep learning curve and frankly, not one I’m sure I can overcome. We will see, but I might just come back to this site. One of my favorite books, The Happiness Project, suggests sometimes to ‘ Abandon a Project’ when it is sucking away your happiness. Self hosting might become one of those things.
My 17 mile run last Sunday was a little tough. It was really, really long. This is the longest run I have ever accomplished and with my previous piriformis injury that I was still overcoming, I had mentally prepared myself that come hell or high water I would complete this. I knew not completing it would be a severe setback mentally in my training. So I showed up at 5 am and began running with my team. One of my friends has also been battling a hip issue and we have both fallen back from the team in previous runs to take it easy. I knew today was not one of those days I could do that. When we got to mile 10 ( our second water stop), we had all discussed not lingering at the water stops to continue moving along. I got my water and kept walking. It turns out some of our team started falling behind at that point. But I stuck it out and kept my 14 min pace. At our 13 mile, our turn around point ( we had done a short out and back on the same road earlier), I saw my friend had fallen behind and was hurting pretty badly. I wasn’t feeling so hot either but I knew if I slowed down or took extra walking breaks, I’d never finish. I had to leave her and continue with my pace. Our team ended up breaking up into 3 groups. I stuck with teammates Heather and Jim, who have been married for quite a while and have kids about my age. Turns out they’ve lived all over the world while serving our nation and they had been on a mission trip to the town I grew up in. It was nice chatting with people I usually don’t get to talk to, and we pushed each other to complete the mileage.
I could not believe my watch when I finally completed my run. Most of the team had completed 14 miles, but since I am training for an earlier race, I am always adding extra mileage. Nearly 4 hours later, I finished.
It feels awesome. I came home and soaked in an ice bath. Miraculously I felt pretty good the following day. I’ve taken it easy this last week, and I think that has helped my healing. This week I have 20 miles.
My Galloway team also took the opportunity to sign up for a virtual half marathon to benefit Marathon High. Marathon High is a charity that coaches kids to walk/run a half marathon and builds confidence and self esteem along the way. Many of these kids are disadvantaged, and running truly becomes not only an outlet, but something they can succeed and take pride in. They hoped to get 250 runners and ended up with many more than that across 16 states and 2 countries. Can you imagine being a kid in the program and having that kind of support? Awesome. Here are the pics of me and my team members who took part in this fundraiser.
How’s your training coming along?
Have you ever ran for a charity?
Have you tried going self-hosted and hit a road block?
Correle Martha! 