3 Miles (or "The Blessing of a Headwind.")

From Pinterest.

Tomorrow I will run 3.3 miles. It will be the furthest I have ever run. And, to be totally honest, it may be the furthest that I ever will.

Last week, I completed 3 miles, so this should feel do-able. Yep. No problem. The first mile should feel easy by now, right? And the second mile? Pshaw, done that. Lots of times. And it's only a mile further to 3 miles, and one more lap to a 5K. No biggie...right?

Oh, my fellow sufferers, so wrong.

3 miles still feels like a whole different person away. It feels as achievable as a size medium, which is to say: not achievable. 

This. is. hard.

But. I am learning the blessing of moving my body uphill and into a headwind.

When you are forcing your legs to move even just a little bit uphill, you appreciate the oh-so-delicious little downhills. The little bursts of an inside curve. And if you stop to notice, when you are running into a headwind, moving at a glacial pace and feeling positively geologic in age, you'll find that the headwind is forcing fresh, cold oxygen into your lungs and your muscles don't hurt quite so much. Plus, where there is a good headwind--there will be a good tailwind.

So tonight I'm charging my i-pod and telling my brain, over and over, that I can run 3.3 miles. That a 5K is within reach, and--just beyond that--a 10K. That I could do that, too... if I wanted to.