Still running... farther now

So I've been MIA on the blog for the past 2 weeks. Busy summer. But nonetheless I have still been getting in some pretty good workouts. My average distance has started to get farther and farther. I'd say over the past 2 weeks I've gone from averaging 7 miles to averaging over 9. My last 2 runs were 12.6 and 11.1 at decent speeds. Today I had quite the reality check though: I was passed by guys that were obviously college runners. Now I don't expect to be at the same level as those guys, but it still was very much humbling to have them zoom by me. I caught one of them grabbing a drink and asked if I could pass off him on my way in, he was nice enough to say no problem. My watch said we were doing 5:40 miles and being that I was on mile 10 at that time, I only lasted about 4 minutes. Instead of getting down about it, I tried to watch the way he ran, see if there was anything in my stride that I could fix. He was about 3 inches shorter than me, but had a much longer stride. I've been trying to keep my strides short and peppy, I think I'm going to try getting a little bit longer for my next few runs. I also need to start getting more than 6 hours of sleep a night, I am dragging hard by the time I need to get out and could easily tempt myself into taking a nap. (it also doesn't help I've been going at the weekends pretty hard... and I'm not talking about working out... so that's going to have to be a lifestyle change pretty soon). I still think I can reach my goal of a 3 hour marathon, I can tell that the last 10 miles are going to be really really hard, but if I continue to up my mileage, stay true to what my body is telling me, I think it will come down to toughing it out. Natural talent didn't really get me very far in my athletic career... and this is no different. I've got to push through all the walls I hit and remember that whatever sacrifices I may be making, and whatever pain I may feel, it's nothing compared to what the people who have to fight cancer have to go through. That's real toughness.

After this post I'm going to start up a facebook group and send out a few emails to promote cause and publicize a bit what I'm doing. I hope you enjoy the blog and please donate whatever amount you feel comfortable with... every dollar counts. See you soon