How to become an endurance athlete - surviving that run!

As endurance junkies we are always striving for that perfect run - when the clouds line up, your player plays the most perfect mix of music, the weather is just a little on the cool side with NO humidity, and nothing hurts.  Never had that type of run, well, neither have I.

Here's how I train myself to become an endurance junkie, but surviving those runs that really suck.  Like my 8 miler today.  If I can make it past this then I can survive 26.2 miles any day.

1.  I walk out the door at 6am and immediately humidity slaps me in the face.  How can it be 80 degrees and 100% humidity so early in the morning?  I start rewriting a song in my head.

"Hello humidity, my old friend.
I've come to run with you again.
There is a moisture softly creeping,
Brought some words that were bleeping.
And the sweat running down my butt
still remains
Within the sounds of sweating.




2.  My headphones decide they will not cooperate.  Has anyone found some ear buds that will stay in BOTH ears.  No, my left side starts to continually fall out.  So my first stop in to get a leaf, fold it up and shove it in my ear to hold the bud it - doesn't help.

3.  I forgot my water bottle holder and my iPhone holder.  So now my ear bud is falling out of my ear, I'm holding a sweaty water bottle in one hand and my iPhone in the other.

4.  My music player has decided to get stuck on one song.  One song only.  So I switch to Pandora and it starts to play Frank Sinatra and Cole Porter.  Granted I like them, but I need something a little more peppy to keep me trekking up that hill.

5.  Before I finish mile 1, I find the one puddle in the road and step in it.  So one foot is soggy and one is not.  Of course I didn't have the right socks so already my bunions are going, "What???"

6.  I am sweating so bad I cannot see, I stop at a gas station and pick up one of those blue paper towels to wipe my face, not realizing there's some kind of cleaner on it.  Now my face is sweating - AND ITCHES.

By the time I head back, there's a junk yard dog sitting at the end of a long drive and I'm thinking after all the other crap I've been working through and still running - bring it on dog.  But soon I realize that he's an old three legged junkyard dog and all he wants to do is lay there and bark at me.  Yeah buddy, I think today I feel like you.

If you can make it through all the crap that threatens to ruin your run then you can make it through those long runs when your body complains from mile 15 on.  That's why they are training runs, they prepare us to fully enjoy that perfect run - if we ever have one!