10 days/100 miles DAY THREE

Today was day 3 and I think I'll blog about this challenge occasionally.
The challenge 10 miles a day for 10 consecutive days. 30 miles done thus far.
When the door opened, the cold air hit me pretty good. I could only postpone this for so long; going out and getting this run started in this chilly weather (31 degrees is nothing, just wait till there are ice droplets on my eye lashes and my bandana freezes to my dread locks). Cold is going to take some getting used to. But whatev. So.
There is something organic going on with my posture and stride that I didn't anticipate, but now seems obvious. I'm a better runner.
During this challenge, I'm not concerned about paces because I am less interested in speed work and more in tuning my body and mind to a higher freq. of endurance. SO the organic aspect that I mentioned earlier has really nothing to do with my head, and that is the part I love the best.
I have a feeling, and I'll know more about it as I continue, that the body is built for running, I mean, what the hell are long legs for anyway, huh? AND, there is innate ability to reasonably conserve what's in the tank and run for a long time. The tank, however, needs to be able to take on calories and the mind needs to let the body do it's thing and if all that is synced up, then the running is easy.
My body hardly moves during the strides. My legs are working at a high level & efficiently though my upper body and arms are, while relaxed, quite motionless, actually I'll call it STEADY, considering the cardio activity I'm doing. I am not trying to do this. I feel like my body has adapted to this work load and wants to conserve because I rarely feed it and water it and it knows that. IF the body can be trained to go faster, than it can be trained to be minimally fed (during the run).
The body will do what it has to do to move down the road for as long as I need it to without bitching and requiring nourishment. My whole grains each evening provide the fuel.
To be sure, I'd take something with me if going longer than 10 miles, btw. I"m not trying to be sadistic or anything.
I eat some gel, whole grain bread with a nut butter and brown rice gel and drink some coffee and head out the door, this is plenty of fuel. Check it though: if I am able to strike a balance with my body between food and water and it running as efficiently as possible, than that is what is ultimate. Often if there is too much in my gut, It can be a bit of a downer and I don't like my thoughts to go to my gut, ever.
I have tendonitis in my R achilles tendon. This is SO lame. I massage it and ice it and put the ibuprophen gel on it and so forth, but i'm working with it. On day two I thought about how I birthed two children naturally, with no interventions, and I thought about nursing those boys and how the pain was so searing that I could taste metal, then I thought how I jumped out of an airplane (quite literally the scariest stupidest thing I've ever done), and then I thought about how I cracked my rib in the moguls last winter skiing and then continuing to run anyway. And I thought about how it sucks so much to hurt when all you want to do is breathe.
And actually sometimes it still hurts to breathe, but not because of the rib. Because sometimes my body wants to rebel against me and act like a queen who wants to rest and be pampered. Physical Sarah would rather enjoy things fine or otherwise and not put the time in or the effort. That's where the mind immediately plays a key role. There is an ongoing dialogue between that physical self and the spirit and there are times where one is the more dominant, right? And there are times where they hit that freq., that runner's ^. And people see it. You don't even have to look like you're smokin fast, you've just dialed the numbers baby and the call is going thru. :) hahaha Clearly I can't wait to run tomorrow. I'll blog again at the half way point.
Later.