10 Miles of FUN!

Saturday was long run day. I needed to get in 9 miles. I'm helping my friend Paige train some of our Sole2Soul Sisters to run a 10K. I was meeting them later in the morning for 4 miles. So my plan was to run 5 miles by myself and then meet them for 4 to get my 9 total.

Long runs by myself are not my favorite. Usually I run long runs with friends. But all my friends were running early that morning and since I wasn't meeting my training group until 9:00 I didn't want to run at 5 AM and then have so much time in between. So I headed out my door at 8:00 to start my 5 solo miles.

Long runs can be boring even though I love to run long! (Did you see my post yesterday on how to overcome long run boredom?) I decided on Friday night to download a new audiobook to listen to on my run. I wanted something easy to listen to. I have read several of Emily Griffin's books in the past so when I saw "Where We Belong" I decided that was the one I wanted!

So I started the audiobook...and started my run. The book captured my attention right away and before I knew it I was at mile 3! What? The first 3-4 miles are always torture for me! But not this time! The audiobook really helped!

I was having a great run! I felt great and got into a good pace. When I got to mile 5 I still had some time before I had to meet the group....so I went ahead and ran another mile! My 5 solo miles turned into 6 solo miles!

Then I met the group and we started the last 4 miles of my long run.

I didn't listen to the audiobook since I now had friends to talk to. Running with friends made those last 4 miles go by faster than I expected!

And the ladies in my training group did GREAT with those 4 miles! For some of them it was the farthest they had ever run! So inspiring!

I finished my 10 miles in 1:49:45 at an average pace of 10:58! I was happy with that!

Gotta love all the salt on my face! Anyone else do this during long runs?

The rest of my day was spent with the family! I even got to go shopping with my mom-in-law while all the boys stayed home and cut down a rotten tree in our backyard. Yeah...my backyard looks like a jungle right now!

The 10 miles was an excellent start to my day! I can't wait till next weekend's long run...and so I can keep listening to my book! ;-)

QOTD: Have you ever listened to an audiobook while running?