10 miles 

It all started with a meaty 0.5 miles almost 2 years back and culminated at a awesome 10 miles yesterday . Well I would not call it culmination , there might be many more races to come but ya this would sure be a landmark to mark it all . 

I have been running off and on for 2 years now and slowly but steadily improving on the scale . One thing is for sure  , once you get to a point say 3 miles its so easy to stop yourself there and not proceed any further . 

The way I like to put it is that after 3 miles it is all in the head . If you can run 3 ..then you can as well run 10 but it all comes down to pushing yourself not to stop and achieve your maximum potential . 

The preparation for the race started by a gently nudging by a friend saying I should give it a try .

I had been practicing for the last 2 months going steadily upwards from 3 miles to a high of 8 miles until 2 weeks back I started getting cramps in my leg and thats when I started worrying if I could actually make it to the race . 

But the race day came and I was there cheered by my friends who unfortunately had to get up at 6 in the morning to drop me . The race day was simply beautiful . Early hours of the morning there were around 600 women aged 20 to 70 all participating in a 10 mile run for the benefit of the girl child . It was the exact time of the year with fall colors just starting to set in and the trail being right next to the missisippi river . The whole ambience was just so great that once the race started there was no stopping back . I used to run and walk , take breaks while practicing but on the race day the adrenaline rush just kicked and there I was running 10 miles at a strech not stopping anywhere till I crossed the finish line . 

At the end of it I was ecstatic , it was unbelievable that somebody who used to huff and puff for running half a mile had finally cruised through 10 miles . This sure goes down my diaries as one of my proud moments . :-P