Last Night A U Haul Saved My Life...

Actually, it was this morning, and my life wan't really in danger, I just felt a little defeated and wanted to puke all over the sidewalk.

Here's the story...
Today I ran the farthest and hardest I've ran so far. It was my long run of 90 minutes at my new training pace of 8:52 per mile. I started off with the usual 5 minute, then started running...I should add here that it was 22 degrees outside and hazy and humid, and this was at 9:00AM!!! Anyhow, the run was going okay, definately not my best run, but not terrible, then around the 83 minute mark I started losing it...perhaps I didn't take in enough liquids during my run on such a hot morning, I'm not too sure, but I really just felt like giving up and walking the rest of the way...with only 7 minutes to go!!! I must have looked like some kind of lunatic because I started yelling at myself to finish...saying things like "If you can't finish this, how can you expect to finish an entire marathon"...this was followed by a long string of expletives that I'm not going to list here...but I'm sure you get the picture. The bottom line is that I made it to the end of the 90 minutes, and was really glad that I did. Then I had to cooldown...I felt super shitty...like my legs were going to fall off, and like I was going to barf all over the place...not cool!!! Anyhow, I was concentrating on not barfing when I found some shade, and at that very moment a U-Haul truck drove by, but this wasn't just any U-Haul truck, this was a U-Haul truck with some cheesy looking fish and coral reef on the side and underneath the cheesy picture we're the words..."Hawaii - America's Marine Adventure".

I immediately took this as a sign from the running gods and it made me think about why I was doing this, and where I was going to end up. I thought about Dad, Nana, Aunt Chris, Emily, Jose, and all the people I could think of with diabetes (sorry if I didn't list your name), plus the people I don't know that have diabetes, and the people who haven't even been born yet that will be born with diabetes, or develop it later in life...and it was at that moment that everything was okay, and I was going to be able to do this and get through it, and it really is a very small price for me to pay to help those affected by diabetes everyday!

Of course, when I got home, I looked down at my Garmin to realize that I had just ran 10.5 miles, and that also made me feel proud.

Everyone has their bad days...today just happened to be mine...it's a good thing they don't happen very often...perhaps I should not go out drinking with the boys the night before a long run...probably a good idea...consider it a lesson learned.

Thanks for reading!

Will