50 Shades of Cray.

Most of you probably think that the Olympic women's marathon was the most extreme running event taking place this Sunday...and you would probably be right, but I have to present another candidate for the craziest event of the day.

The Sound Runner Sea Legs Shuffle 10 mile race, Guilford, CT. Happily, I was joined by Annie and Merry (and Dan in the 5k!), who are as beautiful as they are swift. With an 8:00 AM gun time, we were taking off just as the women were beasting their way across the finish line in London.

In an extreme outfit turn, I wore this awesome jersey for the run:

I covered up the offending word with my bib number: the lucky #314. I spent the whole morning looking for #159, but couldn't find him.

It wasn't my fastest race ever, but I feel really good about it. By my watch, I finished in 1:34:50, which gives me 9:29 splits (which I recognize is quite slow). However, Hal Higdon told me that for every degree it is above 80, I get to subtract 5 seconds from my mile time. So, since it was 85 degrees with 90% humidity, I'm going to cut myself a break, and call it a win for the home team.

The upshot of this race: I felt really positive. At mile 8 I found myself tired and alone, with a smile on my face. When I hit the wall in my 7 mile race, James asked me "What feels good right now?" Thinking along those lines really got me out of the pit. It's easy to feel how tired your legs are and just focus on that, without even realizing, wow, my shoulders feel really good right now! So, on that tip, I started thinking about all the things that were feeling good. I realized that despite the heat and fatigue, my legs felt quite good. I thought about the fact that I had rolled up to the race with two cars full of wonderful friends, which made my heart feel really good. Then I started thinking about the fact that I am seriously closing in on my PhD, and that made me feel reeeally good. So I started saying this mantra in cadence with my steps:

Strong Body.
Strong Heart.
Strong Mind.

And it was good.

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