Another 3.4!

I felt surprisingly good (energetic and not too ouchy) this afternoon so I decided to do a loop around the park. It was a pretty humid day, and I felt a little sore when I started running, but completed the 3.4 miles without a hitch.

(Oh, except that near the end of my run, a teeny bug flew in my eye and died there, and I couldn't get it out until I got home and could look in the mirror. Yuck.)

I read somewhere that the frequent short runs are just as important as the weekly long training runs, and that the two serve different purposes - but I don't think the article said what those purposes were. I thought about that as I was running today, and have a theory. Yesterday, the hardest miles were the first 3 and the last 2. The first 3 just suck because I'm thinking, "Running sucks. I can't believe I've only run [<3] miles. This sucks. I have so many miles to go," etc. The last 2 are hard because, "I want to be done, and running faster would make me run faster, but my legs just won't go any faster, and where the hell is that last mile marker?!" (I've confirmed that my fellow runners have similar thoughts.) My theory, therefore, is that the short runs give you both the start and the finish, and the confidence to do both - so it's really training for mental stamina.