Love/Hate Relationship

So I have decided I have a love/hate relationship with running. As I ran in the Salt Lake Half Marathon yesterday miles 1-7 I thought, "this is great, I'm having a good time." Miles 8-10 I thought okay I can finish, but I'm never doing one of these races EVER again. Mile 11 I wanted to quit and I got so discouraged and wondered why I put in so much time training just to get beat by a hill. Mile 12-13 I felt challenged beyond belief, but invigorated and determined to finish. The last stretch was awesome with hundreds of people cheering I had chills up my arms and I wanted to cry when I crossed the finish line. I am sore and tired now, but already plotting on how to do better on the next one! Yesterday I swore to Brad I was never going to run another half, now I'm thinking I have to. I hear this is the runners curse. You are always thinking you can do better. There is always a time to beat or more mileage to cover. But I see this as a curse and as a motivator thus the love/hate relationship. It is good to set goals and to challenge yourself to meet those goals, but it can also be very self destructive. Going into this race my goal was to finish in under 2 hours. I finished in 1:58... I should be happy, I met my goal. But I find myself disappointed with it. Why did I let mile 11 get me... if only I wouldn't have stopped and walked part of mile 11 I could have finished 2-3 minutes faster. So as I said, a curse and a motivator. I'll have something to work towards and beat, but also sad that it overshadows the accomplishment.

Brad was sweet to fight the crowd to come watch me cross the finish line. Not really a great picture of me, but he had one chance to snap the shot as I ran by! Because by time he could take the second shot I had left him in my dust!

P.S. On a side note one more depressing thing. I was neck in neck the whole race with a little old man (seriously like 70 years old) complete grey hair, half of which was missing. He was slightly hunched over yet he acted like he ran this way every day of his life. I think he even ended up crossing the finish line before me.... what the heck! I'm 28 years old and it kicked my butt! I hope I'm still running when I'm 70.