Like many Saturdays, today began with preparations for my long run.

Oatmeal and coffee. It works. No reason to mess with a good thing.

This is my last week of the single digits. Next weekend I break 10 miles and a new personal record. Way back in the day, my mom and I completed our final run of nine miles before cutting back on the mileage because the distance was taking a toll. All of a sudden whole days became dedicated to recovery and that was never the goal of our hobby.

While I still feel the toll these runs take on my legs, I’m also more knowledgable now. Staying on my feet post-run actually helps me recover faster, helping for the days to not feel so wasted. Better knowledge about what to eat and drink prior and during has also been a bigger help than I could have imagined back then. I was trying to run nine miles without eating a single thing before. Yeah. Bad news bears.

I went into today’s run with a couple of nagging pains. First, I’ve been battling a constant headache this week. It’s more scary than painful. I take heart in the fact that it is getting better. Just very, very slowly.

Secondly, I’ve been running with Will the last few days. I love going on runs with him but he’s just getting started and runs at a slower pace, causing me to step differently than I’m used to. I noticed after two miles together yesterday that my hip was a little sore.

While running in true pain is never smart, if it’s just an annoyance I try to go with my gut. An today my gut said to tough it out.

Nine miles later, I was still alive, although a little tired and probably very dehydrated.

My last few long runs have been truly amazing. Last week I sprinted along, so engrossed in a runner’s high that I could have gone on for miles and miles.

Today, my legs let me know they’d had enough by mile seven. While running is very mental, sometimes my mind doesn’t remember the miles but body sure does.

The other thing – the big thing – that made today hard was the heat. Holy heat! And to top that off, my usual water stop, Chapman University, is closed for Spring Break so no water. As I continued on, cursing life, I saw a church.

I don’t really do church. Will and I went for Easter a few years ago and someone died. Yep. That was my last experience with church. See that paramedic in the pic below? He’s wheeling out the dead person.

Not normally one to go to churches, I hadn’t remembered the row of churches on this run. Being Easter weekend, they were most definitely open and I happily helped myself to their water.

I think I walked more than I would have liked but for some reason most of this run passed in a blur and I can’t remember it too well.

But I definitely still feel it.

So I refueled at Chipotle. Oh man, so good.

The rest of today has been spent baking (more on that tomorrow), and tonight I’m trying something entirely new – tempeh.

Happy weekend!