Pushing the envelop....*

The phrase 'pushing the envelop'* is such a cliche isn't it? But I will shamelessly use it for this blog entry because it is so appropriate. Although my experience this weekend does not compare at all to what pilots and astronauts go through while in space, I really did go past all of my limits and thresholds. Thinking about this run two days later is exhausting. Here is why:

Distance, Distance, Distance!!! - all 14 miles of it

After the hilly stanford dish run, I felt like I had conquered the world. But this was something else. We ran on the Bay Trail that starts from the Oracle campus, goes under the San Mateo bridge and more. I ran with Jamie and we were both very comfortable on our way in. I thought I would only increase 2 miles, but felt good at the 12 mile turnaround, so sort of convinced Jamie to go the whole way, which he did. We turned around and had a nice stop at around 9 miles. From here on things got really difficult! Gu, food, stretching - all were comforting for a few minutes only.

We finally made it to the 12 mile rest station where Captain Randy reminded us that it was all really a mental game and that we were only a good treadmill workout away from the finish line. At 13 miles, Ed met us and ran all the way to the end - 14 miles. We had been running for almost 3.5 hours at this point.

So a recap:

* I have completed my half marathon distance as part of this training. The question is whether I can do more. I would love to improve my time instead.

* This is really hard - my muscles ached all weekend, although right now I feel fine.

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* http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-pus1.htm