Crossing the 13.1 line

I saw my shadow on my long run this morning. It intrigued me for some odd reason so I snapped a picture of it. I also saw a red fox. It literally leaped out of a bush on the road in front of me, ran toward me and stopped. I stopped too and we had eye to eye contact for a good 3-5 seconds until he darted back into the bushes.

The fox really scared me. It was just starting to get light out and it seemed like the perfect excuse to turn around. In my mind it was surely a sign that today was not the day to attempt my goal distance of 13.1 miles. There were other reasons not to attempt it too. It's hard to run when you feel out of sync.

I didn't turn around. I kept running and I finished. Training my brain to go the distance is proving harder than training my body to go the distance. True for running. True for life.

It's weird. I don't feel as good as I had expected to after meeting such a big goal. I'm not sure why. I expected hitting 13.1 to feel incredible. Maybe I'm just not in a place to celebrate today? Or maybe I got a glimpse of how long the rest of the journey really will be?

I feel like moving past 13.1 is crossing an imaginary line. I'm crossing the line into the unfamiliar. I'm crossing into the second half of the marathon and that scares me. The first 13.1 miles was hard. It was hard on my body & some of the lessons were hard on my heart. The next 13. 1 miles will probably be more so. It's so unknown. I've never pushed myself this hard or spent this much time alone with myself. Or my shadow.