8.6 miles and a bloody toe

Hey everyone! Emily here. Wow, I kinda dropped off the face of the blogging world for a little bit. Sorry about that. But, I have some great news! I finished my first really long run on Saturday! Woohoo!! I ran/walked a total of 8.6 miles! I never thought I could do that!

In other good news, I got my first official running-related "injury." Thank goodness it was only a bloody toe! I was all excited because I thought it was the nail itself, but later I figured out it was a nail that was a tiny bit too long and cut the toe next to it. Still pretty cool. I feel like I can call myself a real-live runner now!

The reason I ran so long was because of the new schedule I put myself on. I finished reading The Non-Runner's Marathon Guide by Dawn Dais and it totally got me pumped for a half-marathon. I looked at the schedule in my area and the one that best fits the schedule is on Mother's Day in Fort Collins. Hmmmmm.... normally I would be spending Mother's Day sleeping in and having breakfast in bed. But no, this year it's a half marathon. What the heck am I thinking? Oh well, I'm excited.

This weekend's run was a real milestone for me in that it totally changed my attitude. The longest I had ever run before that was about 4 miles and 13.1 just seemed SO far away. Now, I feel like I could actually do it. I have watched my mile time drop from a comfortable 12+ minutes to feeling comfortable at about 9:40, which is huge for me. I've never run a mile that fast before! I do have to add a portable water pack to my own wish list though. Since it still freezes in CO until about April the city doesn't have the public water fountains open, so by the end of my run I was melting snow and drinking it. I think I read somewhere that that's really not good for you, but I was parched. Anyways, enough rambling from me. Have a great week everyone!