wow, i feel overwhelmed trying to write this post. Lets be honest, my overall day has been overwhelming with an 18 mile run included in it!
I started out my Sunday runday with the same bfast i used for the 16-er. Slice of toast with peanut butter and banana and then finished off the banana with some peanut butter plain. I did add in some other things today though too. I was sure to drink some water. I had a handful of gummy bears (mmmm!) and then a Gatorade prepare thingy. Ha, i doubt it works, but at least i can say i tried it.
We met around 1030-ish at the Manasquan Reservoir to run today. I had never been there and neither had Danny, but Moe and Mike have run it before and they seemed to enjoy it. So run we shall! We got onto the trail and it was pretty muddy and still a bit covered with snow in spots that had iced over, which made for an interesting turn of events. Sadly i was wearing my brand new kicks in that mud too!! Anyway, we made our way around the loop on our first trip which was 5 miles. It took some balancing on our part, some careful tip-toeing while running, cross over here, jump there, and some complete stomps in mud puddles, but we did okay. It was a little bit windy, but NOTHING like yesterday, and nothing unmanageable. After that first loop, the time had come. SNAAAACK TIME!!! The first snack time i chose to go with the Power-Ade type GU Strawberry Banana flavor. It was in a pocket of my pants that's was intimately close to me, so it was warm and thinned out, and easy to get down. Good flavor i suppose, but i just can't get over not liking the texture of it!
On the second loop around, of course we were getting a little bit more fatigued. In my opinion though those 5 mile loops go by pretty fast though. At this point though Elvis was really making some pressure in my pelvis. Thankfully that was the ONLY pressure in there this week! But with Elvis really bothering me, my hip was also starting to hurt. This has been a problem for a few weeks, but nothing i couldn't handle. However today was a bit tricky due to the uneven terrain. It was icy and spotty and my right hip area was seemingly not strong enough to keep myself in line... and when i would slip out on the ice on the right side, it really felt unpleasant. I will say a few four letter words were left out on that trail by all of us! We did manage to get that loop in on the trail before we decided to 'take it to the streets'! Up again, SNAAAACK TIME! This time i went for my Magic Beans! Sport Beans--Fruit Punch flavor. So yummy! Orange flavor might still have one up on this one, but much better than GU for sure!
Next, we rain in a loop on the streets of Howell that ended up being 6 more miles. Add that to the 10 from the loops and we are at 16! You guessed it, another SNAAAACK TIME! This time i had some chocolate GU and an epiphany! Have you had chocolate GU? Holy cow--pure deliciousness! It was like eating chocolate icing. Which, if you know my diet, that is RIGHT up my alley! I can't believe what i was missing out on by trying 'Lemon Sublime (ewww now!)'. Now, that loop around Howell was seemingly uphill the whole way. No matter which corner we turned and which way we ran--it was just uphill i swear! We did mumble about how sucky we felt and how we reaaaaally wanted to be done, and knowing that when we finished we would feel such accomplishment but that was seemingly no solace at the time anyway. Not even my chocolate icing, i mean GU, was working as motivation at this point. And i certainly would not recommend going out onto the streets because there were a LOT of cars, and the shoulder was so small we had to run single file, so we couldn't even talk to each other for the whole 6 miles. I'll tell you the tease too, we got to the end of that hellacious hilly, car invested course, and we had to run RIGHT past the street to go back to the park because we had 2 more miles to get in. We ran a mile past, then turned around, and ran the mile back to the park. Yay DONE!!
After we finished i announced to the whole group that i felt drunk! I was walking all out of sorts and pretty much having an out of body experience. If you gave me a hamburger i woulda looked just like David Hasselhoff eatting! 18 miles was the farthest i have ever run, so finishing it was kind of euphoric. Pure shock that i was able to get my body to run that far. My knees were sore, Elvis was a mess, i was hungry and craving a soda, and wanted to sit down more than anything in this whole world. BUT WE FINISHED!
Afterwards, when we realized how long it actually took us, i was a bit disappointed. I mean 18 is a great feat, but we didn't run as fast as we had been, i didn't feel as good as past runs either. We did 10+ min miles, and some 11+ min/miles too. Must have been the hills! We are soooo spoiled running on the boards all the time. Nice and flat--a racers best friend :-)
While on the course, everyone got to hear my embarrassing 'snot' story from yesterdays race (sorry, will not be disclosed here!), Moe's awesome trip to Disney and how she rain in capri's and a long sleeve shirt (aww poor thing :-) ), and various other running stories that shall remain unsaid. Hey, what happens on the running trail, stays on the running trail. Well, that is, unless i write about it here for the entire internet community to read! We did see a bald eagle flying overhead. I have never seen one before, so that was just downright cool! After we finished we went into the center to sit by the fire---that apparently wasn't lit today. Man! But it gave Moe and I a chance to change out of our sweaty running clothes into dry clothes. Yes i get it, the drive home was only 20 mins, but it made the world of difference i swear!
So this week coming up, the sprints don't look so bad, but the tempo run is 8 miles again, and then only 10 for the long run. Not looking past that cause i know there is a 20 that week.
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