WILL THE MADNESS NEVER END?!? (Stacey)

I know, I'm super dramatic. What can I say? I'm a youngest child. :)

I ran 9 miles yesterday. It was gross. I was gross. I hurt a lot afterwords, but I did it. So I suppose I have reason to be proud of myself, but I was SUPER annoyed at how slow I went for the second half so it's sort of bittersweet. There are no major cool/fun stories about yesterday so I'll just share some random facts about the run:

-I ran 4 miles then 3 miles then 2 miles, still not sure how I feel about that arrangement.
-I saw another doe. So that makes 2 does at home, and a doe, 2 fawns, and a buck my engagement weekend run (in the storm . . . now that one was a good story).
-Running PAST your house multiple times over the course of a run is obnoxious. It's kinda mean to yourself. I ran by my house 3 times, 4 if you include when I ran in to get water and Gu.
-Triple berry Gu is much better than the mandarin variety. Although I still gagged a little . . .
-I saw this very large bird/goose thing fly from tree to tree. My parents think it was a wild turkey, I have NO idea what it was, but it was slightly disconcerting to run past the tree I knew it was lurking in . . .
-I have new blisters and have re-chafed areas that have just recently healed. I love running SO MUCH. *barfgagcough*

My brain can think of nothing else interesting . . .

Today I ran an "easy 3 miles" which really was 3.25 miles (ish), so I ran a mile, walked a bit, ran a mile, walked a bit, and ran a mile as fast as I thought I could, which ended up being 9 minutes. I was out of the house for a total of 35 minutes and feel pretty decent.

And that's all I have to say about that.

In regards to the title - I was musing yesterday about how far 9 miles is. It's far. I could run from my home to the Meijer store we frequent. Shoot dang. Also, it's not super far from 13.1 miles. So I'm almost to the half marathon distance! Huzzah! On the other hand, I still have a 10 mile, 11 mile, and 12 mile to run. . . . rawr. So I have 4 super long runs before I get to be done with this whole long distance thing. Plus all the little runs in between. I'm almost to the point where I don't totally HATE all the shorter runs. I actually kinda like my runs when they're less than 4 miles, but still, I am SO READY to be done with chafing and blisters and sweat DRIPPING off my face after a half hour outside and random muscle spasm cramps and not wanting to move for 6 hours after a run. But I still have 5 more weeks . . . ughuhbuh . . .