Gut Check! You ready?

My daughter's swim team, University Swim Club, has the title of this post as their motivational slogan for the year. Essentially, at the end of every practice, they swim a 50 yard set as hard and fast as they can, to see what they have left.

What does this have to do with running 100 miles? Nothing and everything...

Today's run was a gut check of sorts. My family has been passing around the stomach flu for the past week. It was bound to a happen, and it was my turn. I am fortunate in that I had a very mild case. I was originally planning on running with the Vertical Runner group at 6:30am but with my stomach still a bit on edge, I thought that being in the middle of the woods would not be the best place to be in case I had a relapse. So I slept in and then decided to run 3x7mile laps on the streets/paths close to home. My wife Denise agreed to run the first lap with me and it was nice to have some company to help pass the miles.

The second lap went a bit tougher since the legs were starting to feel the effort and I was just a bit chilled in the exposed sections of the path. The third lap was my "Gut check". I really was ready to end this, my legs were tired, and my hands were cold. But, I knew that next August, I would not be able to quit because "I was tired", or because my "legs hurt!" whaa whaa whaa. I just needed to 'suck it up and run'. So that is what I did.

My run was eventually over and of course, I felt very very good about completing the distance. Tired, sweaty, cold, but content in a strange sort of way. Long runs have a way of doing that. They sometimes stink during the process, but it always feels good at the end.

One of my answers for people when they ask me why I like to run is "Because it feels so good to stop!" It is a silly answer, but the real answer is an abbreviated version: "Because it feels so good to..."