My mom asked info was going for pace or distance and I said a little of both. So she had the idea to run the first half uphill and the second half down. It sounded like a good plan.
I had somewhat of an idea of where I was going to go, so I headed out. I figured it wasn't too windy so I'd go with the wind to my back first since I was going up hill. I felt good and strong and around mile 4.5 there was a nice hill. It went down and then had a slight uphill. Not bad... I ran around in a neighborhood until I got to 5 miles and then turned around and went back.
I don't know if it was the wind or the fact that the hill I ran down was a LOT steeper than it looked, but I was feeling myself starting to drag. 
Miles 5, 6, and 7 were tough. I was supposed to be going down hill but instead I was climbing back up and this time I had the wind in my face.
Around mile 8 I was back to the lake and I knew how it felt to run around that. I picked my pace back up and finished strong. My slowest mile was mile 7 at 10:51 and my fastest mile was mile 10 at 9:23.
There were plenty of times I wanted to stop, but I didn't. I kept going. I keep telling myself that I can't stop if I want to run a sub2. Im cheating myself and I'll never learn to run at a consistent pace if I don't train myself to keep going. I gotta work on the mental game. The stopping is all in my head. My body and legs ache, sure, but it's not like they haven't hurt worse. When I want to quit that is when my body/mind is reaching another level and I have to push to get there. Now I just need to be consistent and keep up with my training.
