6 mile hill filled run

Last night I finished my treadmill run around 8:30pm-ish.  And then this morning, I wake up (around 10:30am) to a text message from my friend Nicole (the one I signed up to run the marathon with), she wanted to know if I wanted to run 6 miles with her in 30 minutes.  I was actually very excited because having someone to run with does two things for me 1) it keeps me social and 2) it pushes me to run harder.  I met her at her house and we went to a nearby regional park.  I should have realized that when the name of the park contains "hills" in it, it would be hard.  I think in total we ran more than 6 miles but we don't have high tech gizmos and gadgets and I can't map out the route on map my run.  The hills were a killer and this was a realization that my marathon dreams will be hard to obtain.

Nicole was ready and trained to run the Frederick half marathon last weekend so I shouldn't really be comparing but she seemed to have no problem with the run while I was struggling.  I'm glad she was with me though.  We differ in our goals for the marathon.  She wants a good time, I want to train, have fun, and finish.  I care about time but for my first marathon it isn't too important.  I am running it as a gift to myself.  in 2010 I spent about 4 months in various hospitals for seizures, surgery to remove my pituitary tumor, and other health issues.  It was a scary and painful year for me, my friends, and family.  Now that I am healthy and have the ok to exercise, I want to run this around the one year anniversary for my brain surgery.  I think it will be cool to look back on the day of the marathon and think "this time last year I was recovering from brain surgery".  The type of surgery was hard core for surgery but not hard core for brain surgery so please don't think I am some brave person for surviving.  But for me, it was a huge deal and a life-changing (and traumatizing) experience. 

So today was good.  I am glad I have Nicole to train with.  Tomorrow will be cross training and then rest on Monday.