Seven miles!

This Saturday marks my longest run yet! SEVEN MILES. SEVEN! I can't believe it. I really can't. I started out today only planning to run six miles (I'm laughing to myself that I just wrote "only" and "six miles" in the same sentence) because last weeks six miler was so tough. But as fate may have it, the weather was so gorgeous and I felt great, so I went for the seventh mile, and I felt great! Like, really great. Like great enough I could have kept going. But, in my plan to NOT GET HURT this time, I didn't keep running. I will thank myself for that later!

So yes, today was glorious. A run to remember for sure.

I swear, if you would have told me two months ago that I'd be getting up at 7:30am on a Saturday morning to run I would have told you that you were crazy. And if you'd told me I'd actually look forward to doing so, I'd probably have recommended you check yourself into the looney bin, because I hate getting up early with a passion, and I can't run to save my life. Ha. How quickly things change.

In other news, my afternoon included a trip to a massage therapist to try and work out the extremely sore and tight calf muscles I've been battling (yes, we've determined the pain I've been having in my shins is my calf muscle and nothing else, which is great news!) Turns out, my new massage lady runs ironman triathlons. Here I am feeling all fantastic that I ran seven miles, and this lady does ironmans. 2.4 miles of swimming, 100+ miles of biking and a marathon. All in the same day! I can't even imagine.

She was fantastic though, so I'll be going back to her from now on. She did confirm my fear that my calf muscles are unreasonably tight and I am kind of a walking time bomb for a more serious injury. In fact, she said the current condition of my calves would be considered a calf injury, which makes me a little sad and makes me feel a little hard core at the same time. I promised to stretch, ice, get to yoga as much as I can and come back in two weeks. Again, I am going to do whatever it takes not to get hurt!

Lastly, my poor little feet are covered in blisters. Ok, little feet isn't really true, so more truthfully, my big feet are covered in blisters. I got new shoes right when I started training, and they were the wide version of the shoes I've always worn and I'm afraid that they are just a bit too big. I'm going to get new (non cotton) socks and go to a running store in the city to see if they can offer any help (i.e. an insert or a new way to tie my shoes.) I'm also giving some real consideration to buying another pair of shoes to cover all of the walking I do, and use my running shoes for solely running. I realize that's what you're supposed to do, but I walk everywhere and I was trying to avoid walking in one pair of shoes and carrying another. But, as the theme of this post seems to be, if it keeps me from getting hurt, I'll do it.