Clear Blue Sky

Today my teammate and I did the first of many long runs to come.  We've been following a new training program for an upcoming May marathon; one that is significantly more challenging than we are used to, and it's beginning to take a toll on both of us physically.  For this run, we were on the road for 2 hours and 15 minutes.  At mile 7 she said she couldn't believe that we'd only been running for an hour.  I reminded her that an hour was, in fact, a long time.  We both laughed at this.  At mile 9 we both started to get pretty tired and by mile 11, all of our aches and pains were in full force.  At this point, our stories had all been told, our questions answered, and we were both getting very quiet, just focusing on getting it done.  At mile 12 we were coming down a hill and I told her to look up.  The sky was so blue it looked fake.  "Incredible", she said.  "Unbelievably gorgeous," I agreed and we both just took it in.  At that moment, we forgot about the pain we were feeling.  It was surreal.  "It is amazing", I said, "that even when I am this exhausted, I can still have moments like these that make me so thrilled to be out here."  Clear blue sky.  Today it was truly that simple.

Listen to this:
Black Tambourine - Beck