Perspective

Funny how your perspective can change...

Monday I did my last double digit run before my marathon, a 12 miler. In the Spring, 12 would have been a "long run." Monday I realized it was "long" but not "that long." I chugged through it and wondered if I had done enough long runs to get me through this marathon.

Tuesday was a rest day. We got up at 3:30 am to catch a 6 am flight. On the flip side, we were in Nassau by noon.

This is the bridge that connects Paradise Island (where our resort was located) to the city of Nassau. I decided I was going to run it while we were here.

View from our hotel room

Wednesday I set my alarm for 6 am so I could get a run in before swimming with the dolphins at 9 am. 6 am dawned pitch black and I decided I didn't want to run around a foreign country in the dark, plus, I was still tired from the day before. We barely made it to the dolphins by 9. I decided I got enough "cross-training" in by climbing the steps up the fake Mayan pyramid to the water slides the rest of the day.

Thursday I set the alarm for 7 am. It was dawn. Everyone else was asleep but I decided "I'm going to do this," and hopped out of bed. We were scheduled to do a 3 hour walking food tour of Nassau at 11:30 am so I knew that if I didn't run in the morning I wouldn't feel like it in the evening. I turned on the Garmin and headed for the Paradise Island Bridge.

This is what the bridge looks like from another perspective - ground level vs. 5 floors up in a hotel room. I also thought it was further away but found it was less than a mile from where I started and I had only gone a little over a mile by the time I crossed it. I had 5 miles planned so I ran back over and started going up the road past the entrance to our hotel. I then found myself at the entrance to one of the wings to our hotel. The sun was up and it was HOT! I could feel the cool breezes coming from the entry. I was really tempted to just duck inside and be done but I still had over a mile to go. I ended up running through the resort to the beach side and running the length of the resort on the walkway by the beach. That completed 5 miles.

So proud of myself that I got my butt out of bed!

Later, after our food tour, we were in downtown Nassau and I asked our guide how far we were from the Paradise Island bridge. I had my whole family with me and we had been walking for over 3 hours so I had no intention of making them walk back, but I was just curious. Well, he hemmed and hawed that it was "far" and that we could get a taxi or a water taxi, etc. I finally got across to him that we really weren't going to walk back but I just wanted to know the distance. Then he says "really far... it will take you at least 30 minutes... maybe 2 miles away..."

More tomorrow about our food tour. That's a post in itself!

Friday was our travel day home. I had originally planned to run on Wednesday and Thursday but since I blew off Wednesday I set my alarm again for 7 am on Friday. Surprisingly, I got up before my alarm. I ran across the bridge and back and ran by the beach again. Got 4 miles in. Then it was a quick shower, change into a swimsuit , hit the pools and water slides again until checkout at 11 am. Took a taxi to town and had lunch at Bahamian Cookin' - it had been our first stop on the food tour the day before and the food was fabulous.

You really can get a whole lot more done if you can pry your butt out of bed in the morning. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people! Try as I might, I really like to sleep in the mornings.

Our plane landed in Indy at midnight and we got home at 1 am. I set the alarm for 7:30 am as I had an 8 miler planned for today. 7:30 am - it's dark, pouring rain, and freezing inside our house. No way this chickadee's getting out of bed to run outside. I considered going to the fitness center but the bed won out. I stayed in bed until I had to take my daughter to cheer. After that, the usual kid's Saturday took over - football game til 1 pm then off to Carmel for "Nutcracker" rehearsal. Got back after 4 pm.

Finally got my run in after that. On the plus side, the rain had cleared and it was a beautiful fall day. I pretty much ran on auto-pilot. Again, an 8 miler would have been one of my longer runs in the Spring. Today I just jogged along and thought about everything else - things to do when I got back home, groceries to get, what my heels might feel like when I get home... Like I said, pretty much on auto-pilot. I got to a stop sign to stop for cars and realized I only had a mile and a half to go.

So, here's how my run week ended up...

Sunday - 5 miles
Monday - 12 miles
Tuesday - rest
Wednesday - rest
Thursday - 5 miles
Friday - 4 miles
Saturday - 8 miles

34 miles total. Exactly what the training plan prescribed except that I didn't do any speedwork. I figured running over the bridge counts for something though!