Cowboy Hazel

I've been asking people this question lately and have been getting a lot of different answers: "Anything longer than an hour," "Over 10 Miles," "The longest run of the week that you do on the weekend," "Any run where you have to stop for food along the way," etc. Of course, there's no right answer, but I just like seeing what people say. Personally, I consider a long run simply to be anything over 12 miles. And, by that definition, I ran my first long run since November today.

I'd love to tell you that it was a beautiful return to distance running and that everything was wonderful and nice. But I can't. Well, I guess I could, but I'd be lying. Fact is, today's run hurt. A lot. I ran from here on 116th Street down the entire East River then headed back up the Hudson to 14th. As soon as I started, my knee, feet, lungs, head, pretty much everything started to hurt at once. And they never really stopped hurting. The temp was 36 and there were some brisk winds. I don't recall ever being so hot and cold at the same time as I was today. I'd get all warm and sweaty in my winter gear and then run into a patch of cold air that would freeze it to my body. I got super-duper hungry (like I could hear my stomach growling) about an hour into the run too.

So, why all this whining? Why am I bothering to type all this out? Because I fought through it and I finished the 12.9 miles that I mapped out for myself even though it wasn't a lot of fun. My pace suffered a bit (7:17 miles), but I didn't quit. And that's worth something.