"What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals."

Spartan Shape-Up, Day 37:

I ran 25 minutes today. Solid. No breaks. Holy shit. Let's just take a moment on that one. WOW. I remember when I started this, I struggled to run a 3 minute segment. Today I did 25, and felt GOOD doing it. At the tail end of it, I was tired, for sure, but if I had to, I could've pushed through a couple more minutes. That's how it's supposed to be - you're not supposed to be completely beaten to an inch of your life at the end of a run... and I wasn't today. Even though I went so long.
I just kept thinking about what I had accomplished, and I kept my head up and kept looking for the next little goal along the path (just to that tree, now to that rock, etc.) and before I knew it, 25 minutes. :-) I am feeling very proud of myself, at the moment.
My big benchmark is being able to do a 30 minute run... I'm ALMOST there, probably another 2 weeks before I can do that solidly and consistently... but it actually feels attainable, right now.

Off to stretch a little bit - I've been having some stiffness/tightness in my calves on and off... which, for me means I need to eat more bananas (I have a bit of a potassium deficiency, which is a mineral that works within your muscles, telling them to release... if they don't release, then you get tightness, and potentially huge knots...), and do some more gentle stretching.

However, today, I'm doing that all with a big, accomplished smile on my face. 25 MINUTES!.... I'm going to throw myself a tiny party when I get to a 30min benchmark run, I tell ya....