20 Miles: Complete!

Yesterday, I ran 20 miles!
It seems so surreal. But, yes I did do it!

Again, I walk into the gym with KT Tape on my leg and with a bag that I seem to pull an endless supply of water bottles out of. Again, I play with the formula for my nutritional needs of water, Gatorade and GU. I think I have it figured out which is wonderful! The T.V. is on for some noise, but it is not facing me. I am alone in the gym. It's all about me conquering this 20 mile run. I made it to 18 last week, but can I push through to make it to 20? I am a little intimidated by the sound of "20" and "3 hours". However, I start to psyche myself up. I am going to get this done!

I think a lot when I run. If I am not distracted by other people or the T.V. being too loud, I pass the time by thinking. Some of my thoughts went as follows:

"I wonder what that is in the parking lot over there?" My mind then wonders to all the possibilities.

"My kids want to run a race. How can I make that happen?" I think of kid friendly races or the option of holding one at school.

"Man, I enjoy my life so much." I think of all the things I am thankful for.

"I wonder how race day will go." Analyzing optional race day possibilities.

"I wonder what all that cheering is for on the T.V.?" I then visualize myself running down the road on race day and the crowd all cheering for me.

I know that my run is going well when I get lost in my thoughts. I missed the mile marker a few times which indicates to me what nutrition I need to take in. I quickly calculate and take my nutrition, then my thoughts begin to wonder again.

I started to think about how training for this marathon started off difficult in the sense of having a knee injury and finding shoes that wouldn't bother it. But what it really comes down to is dedication. I have gotten in all of my long runs. I make a choice to eat healthy so that my body can handle all the work and I rest well. I then thought, what if dedication is all that it took to make something happen.

Let me explain: Currently me running this race is allowing us to do this project. Running is the action that causes sponsorships which allows us to purchase math manipulatives. There is an action that causes a chain of events that gives us an end result. My thoughts turned to what would the world be like if an action caused the end result. I would run and at the end of every mile a set of manipulatives would pop up for our school! I realize this is a funny thought and its obviously not going to happen. However, it made me think of how things would be different. Dedication is not what our world is missing. Its the resources to make something happen. If it only took dedication we would have a cure for cancer, there would be no hunger, no children would live in poverty, the whole world would have clean water....the list goes on and on.

I hope that my running can cause those chain of events that allows us to have the resources we need to make this project successful. I hope what we are doing today will help create active minded, critical thinking, dedicated students who will continue to change the world! You can help!

As that stream of thoughts began to end I looked down at the treadmill and it read: 19.70. I was almost there! I was almost to 20 miles! I decided that I still felt pretty good, so I would increase my speed a bit faster to finish the last quarter of a mile. And so I did. I finished 20 miles with enough energy to finish it up with increased speed! My dedication is paying off. I can not wait to see what else my dedication brings!