Yesterday I wrote about my particularly demanding bike workout. Sure enough, when I woke up this morning, my legs felt tired and sore.  My long run was not going to be easy.

Mid-morning found me at my local park, standing beside my car in my run gear.  I was trying to build up enough mental strength, to start running.  My legs were still sore and I knew that the first few steps of the run were going to be painful.

Experience has also taught me however, that while my legs will hurt at the start of the run, they will quickly improve.  Typically, most pain is gone, after the first five to ten minutes of running.  Knowing this, I plucked up the courage to start running.  

As expected, my legs were hurting quite a bit.  After about a mile of running, I was expecting them to feel better; they did not.  Two miles in, I still had the same feeling.  My pace was quite slow and my effort level was controlled, but my legs still hurt.

I started to seriously think about cutting my run short.  I was about twenty minutes into my one and three-quarter hour run.  I didn’t quit however.  I told myself to trust experience.  I had faith that my legs will come around eventually.

I am so glad that I didn’t quit on my legs.  While they never got to a point of being completely pain free, they did get a lot better.  It was just that today, it took close to six miles of running, to get them there. By the end of the run, my form had improved and so had my pace.  I just felt like I was running the last few miles of a marathon race, and that is something I know I can handle.