I have good news to report, instead of throwing in the towel after several weeks of bad runs and giving up to my couch…I headed out for another run.  The first run out wasn’t pretty and didn’t lift my confidence any.  Then, the next day, I had one of those beautiful runs that makes all the bad runs worthwhile.  And the next day, I had my fastest run yet.  I must have hit rock bottom and ran my way back to the top, because since then I’ve had two 10 mile training runs that I’m very proud of.  They weren’t my longest or fastest runs by any stretch, but I’ve never actually ran that far in training.  I have more hope for finishing the marathon today then I did a mere 10 days ago.

One main contributing factor to my “good” runs has been proper nutrition and hydration.  I realized that I wasn’t eating enough calories to sustain the amount of running I was doing.  I’ve discovered that I have a pretty low tolerance when it comes to hydration and calories in and effort out.  I have to make sure I’m super hydrated and have a decent number of calories or my performance definitely suffers.  This goes against my recent mindset of cutting calories to loose the pounds I’ve put on in the last few years.

The other good news, is even while eating more calories, I’m taking up less space and do actually fit into my skinny jeans.  It’s been about 3 years since I’ve wanted to even pull those jeans out of my drawer — and such an amazing feeling to wear them and feel good in them.  This one small victory has also given me incentive and motivation to keep to my training plan.

This weekend is the Bourbon Chaser relay down in Kentucky, for the first time in a long time I’m actually looking forward to running with friends and know for sure I won’t disappoint them with my running ability.