No Dread

I had 12 km on my schedule for today and the weather report was calling for a beautiful Sunday - last night I was already looking forward to our run. Then this morning when I got up, I made some blueberry-walnut-bran pancakes from Runner's World magazine and when we were all done with breakfast I was raring to go! It is just absolutely gorgeous out, sunny and cool - perfect fall running weather.

So as we got started I suddenly realized that it's been a while since I felt that "long run dread" - you know, when your whole weekend (or even week) is overshadowed by the long run you have coming up... When I was training for my first two halfs, I had a serious case of the dreads and it would start on Friday night already. I was always scared and nervous about my long runs. I worried about what I ate, drank and did on Saturday, in case it might affect my run. I was stressed and grouchy. And the only thing to relieve my dread was to get the run done and then be off the hook for another 7 days.

So what's different now? I was thinking about that, but I'm not sure. I think I stopped having the dreads last spring when I was training for the 20KM of Brussels. I started to enjoy and even look forward to my long runs. Perhaps some of it has to do with the weather. The first two half marathons had me doing the bulk of my training in the winter months and that is tough to go out and run for two hours in rain, sleet, snow or ice... Maybe the fact that as my runs got longer this spring, the weather got better, made a big difference?

Anyway, today we had another really good run. Stefaan even stayed with me the whole distance (he kept saying he wasn't going to do 12 but ended up doing it anyway) and we finished strong. Yay!



There were tons of other people out running, some we recognized and a lot new, some fast, some slow - it was great! When we got back we stretched really good and then I did the Wii Fit Yoga for a bit to loosen up. My oldest son was making lunch today - Mexican wraps with all the fixings - which was a nice treat for me not to have to do it myself. The boys are going to take turns making lunch on Sundays now, which is pretty cool.

Wherever you are and whatever you are running today, I hope you have a great run and no dread! Oh, and here is the link to the recipe I made this morning - it was really good (I subbed vanilla soy milk for the regular milk and dropped the honey):

A Recipe For Walnut and Blueberry Bran Pancakes from Runner's Wo