I Ran I Walked I Fell I Bled

I Ran I Walked I Fell I Bled - It Was Awesome

(As I type this I'm currently icing my ankle).

See, I'm running a 10K road race this weekend, and I felt the familiar anxiety creep it, the schedule stalking (what days I can run, what days would be mandatory rest, can I do strength training this day, what pace should I shoot for)... I think you get the point. But see, this is not what I want. This is what I did last year. I got so caught up in paces/miles/training that I lost sight of the real reason I wanted to run. I got so into my marathon training that I missed several other races that I wanted to do, but I was afraid I'd get injured. I didn't get in one trail run last year (that I remember anyway). And you know what, I wound up getting injured, didn't run hardly any races, missed the marathon, even the half that I changed to and finished up the year defeated and hurting (literally).

So I'm trying to make it a point to be different this year
- I of course want to improve, but I don't want to get so caught in time training that I don't allow myself to just have fun.

I knew that I needed to get in a good 5-6 mile run this past weekend, but I didn't want to. It was super windy on Saturday. There wasn't any time on Sunday, and I really just didn't want to get out there and sludge through the run. So instead, I went to the Appalachian Trail. I left my car at one entry point, ran/hiked 6.5ish miles to the other entry point where Hubby and Lil Man picked me up.

2 hours later I limped out of the woods, and it was awesome.

Part of the trail was super super rocky.

Other parts were run-able.

I fell while running. I went down so fast I didn't know what had happened. I banged my knee on a rock, and near the very end I turned my ankle over bad. But as I was out there, I realized that I loved it - every minute of it. And this is definitely something that I want to do more of.