Sweet Seventeen

As I sat drinking my coffee this morning and dreading my workout, I read my daily does of blogs, including Ironmomma's.  As always, great posting, but something caught my eye-she started talking about failed workouts and the fear of the failure, basically saying that anyone that only posts good workouts is full of s$%t.  You know, she is so right.  I always hold myself extremely accountable and feel like thwe world's biggest failure if I don't finish the workout I am "supposed to".  The real pain is, I've posted my training schedule for the marathon, so I sort of feel married to it right now.  And today was a 17 miler that I ditched last weekend due to negative temps.
Then I started thinking.  Why am I listening to a plan over my body?  Since I am a type A person and a dedicated athlete, I know that I will get in 95% of my workouts without fail.  I shouldn't feel bad or fear cutting one short, or "missing" a goal pace.  And this morning, I just felt like crap.
Reading the post made me feel better about going out for this run and listening to my body....goal 1 being finishing it, but being ok with going a bit slower or cutting it short if I needed to.  And I felt ok about posting it and being more accountable to how i was feeling rather than justifying why I cut it short to the internet.
So.....after all of that soul searching, I went out for my 17 miler.
And I rocked it.
Funny what happens when you give yourself permission to be human :-P  The first 5 miles were painful, but I zoned out and just enjoyed the snow and let myself be.  While I won't deny there weren't some rough moments, I am super proud of it!
The Stats
Distance: 17.02 miles
Time: 2:35:27
Pace: 9:08
After a monumental success like that, the hubs and I decided to try to be a "normal" couple and not wear our jammies all day, s we went out to dinner and a movie.
Cracker Barrel, you are are amazing.  You entertain me (yes, apparently I am "just plain dumb"

Your food is just plain amazing (ok, its not core friendly, but I swear I was in the workout window!)

And the company was just great!  (For the record, Greg left 4 pegs in the game board, so I am smarter than him.  Of course, since I chose to spend over two hours outside freezing my toosh off, the jusry is still out on that one).
It's also worth mentioning that he deserves the husband of the day award, because he let me choose the movie and tolerated really enjoyed watching psychotic ballerinas.  Of course, the girl on girl action probably helped.
All in all, I would say it was a pretty sweet day!