Quality vs. Quantity

As I headed out for my 10 miler this morning, I started having crazy thoughts of increasing my mileage just a little bit in order to hit the 50 mile mark for the week.  After yesterday’s 22.2 miler, I felt remarkably good.  My legs felt the mileage for sure, but my body continues to surprise me with its resilience.  So as I headed out this morning, I thought, “Hm, hitting 50 would just mean grabbing another 2ish  miles at the end….”

After my customary 2 miles with Bella (boy, she really loves that time running free), I dropped her off and headed out for an 8.5 mile loop.  I felt strong.  I had left my watch at home and just ran by feel.  At mile 5, I pulled over and stretched out some tightness in my legs, retied my shoes, and took a GU.  Marching on, I had lots of company in the form of other runners, walkers, cyclists, fox……yes, fox.  Even without my glasses, I knew he was no dog.  He stared at me from a driveway and I slowed way down, wondering if he was just curious or if he was going to be a problem.  I was pretty close to him at this point.  He then darted off; I ran on….with a little more zip in my step!

Still wondering if I had just a couple more miles in me at the end…..

It was at about mile 7 that I realized how ridiculous I was being.  Now, trying to hit a particular mile total is not always ridiculous.  However, here is the question I asked myself:  Quality or Quantity?  I answered quickly to myself:  Quality.  I’ve had a decent week, I feel good despite continuing to log many more miles during my weeks than ever before (and I am not historically a high mileage kinda girl!), and I have another 22/10 combination on tap for next weekend.  That doesn’t even take into account that I’m only half way through my training cycle for Stonecat.  So, that’s why my idea of increasing today’s run would’ve been for all the wrong reasons.  For me, anyway.

So instead of thinking of different ways to get a couple more miles in today, I switched gears to thinking about how much I enjoy running.  The past couple of weeks have been a little rocky (I mentioned in another post:  some work drama, tired, more tired).  In fact, I had been starting to feel pressure about my long runs – not for speed or anything like that, but just the mere fact that I had them looming in the not too distant future.  It’s taking more and more time to run these longer and longer runs (by design), and I have honestly been feeling like I don’t have any time for anything else.  That’s one way to potentially resent an activity you normally love.

The best thing I did was accept a running invitation from Meaghan for the 22 miler.  The next best thing I did was go in to today’s 10 miler wearing no watch.  And lastly, I took the pressure off of myself that I “should be doing this” or “could be doing that” and did the best thing I could do:  be happy with my 48 miles and well, just be.