Annie's on the run

So, first I have a bunch of random stuff for you. It was a very busy week! So let’s start with Monday. I got my race pictures back from Run To Remember LA. This is far from the most flattering picture of me (or the man next me), but here’s how I looked right before crossing the finish line. LET IT BE KNOWN that I caught up to that man and we crossed at EXACTLY the same time.

Then on Tuesday a bunch of us girls went to see John Mulaney and Nick Kroll’s “Oh Hello” comedy show. My face hurt from laughing so hard.

On Wednesday and Thursday Boston surprised us with GLORIOUS spring weather. A shorts run in February! I will take it. Riley is also thrilled about the weather, as you can tell.

We also celebrated S’ birthday once more on Thursday night with some friends and we went to a super small and popular Italian restaurant down the street from us. The two hour wait was definitely worth it. I got four meals out of this beauty!

Then Friday winter returned and it looked like this outside:

I’m not even complaining because it was gorgeous, especially when the sun came out to set.

Then on Saturday I ran 16 miles with the TEAM. It was pretty icy to begin with, but by the time we were finishing up the sun was out in full force and it turned to slush. Overall it wasn’t too shabby. Then when we finally got home, I settled into a nap for several hours and then C came over and Riley got really into our group photoshoot.

Then Sunday morning came and I was utterly exhausted from the week. My legs felt like they were packed full of sand (I ran 16 miles the day before for crying out loud!) and I had a terrible headache from not hydrating basically at all throughout the week. But I had a 5 miler to race, so S drove me over to Cambridge and we brought the pup to spectate. From mile 1 I thought I was going to die. I ran a 7:07 that first mile and I truly thought that was it for me. I made a promise to myself that I was just going to try to hold onto that pace for as long as I could. My following miles were 7:05, 7:03, 7:14 (oopsies, but to be fair there was a sizable hill in this mile), and 6:50 and that led to me PR by almost a full minute! As I’m typing this I still cannot believe it.

You know how after a hard race sometimes you forget how hard it was like a day or two later and you think to yourself “that was actually pretty good”? That was not the case here. I felt terrible and even now, two days later, I still know that I felt terrible. But it’s absolutely crazy what your body can accomplish even when your mind begins to turn against you. Every single mile was a struggle for me but I just tried to separate my mind from my body and keep my legs moving forward and my arms pumping. I told myself pretty much every step of the way, “just power through this mile and you can take the next one slower.” It’s a fun little mind trick I like to play on myself for shorter races and so far it’s been successful. I’ve never ACTUALLY taken the next mile slower.

After committing to lie down and die around 700 times, I finally crossed the finish line in 35:18. Over a full minute better than the personal record I set on January 1st. And two days later I’m still shocked as hell about it. I have no idea how I powered through to do it, but I do know that this race will stay with me for a long time. And I will absolutely be using it as motivation to push through the harder parts of the Boston Marathon in a few months, where I will undoubtedly want to lie down and die 17000 times in the course of 26.2 miles.

What do you use to push through your harder races? Do you have a mantra? Can I steal it?