I Survived...

(I wanted to post this 3 days ago, but life seems to have gotten in the way!)

More like, I kicked butt! 22 miles down and a marathon to go!

Saturday started out VERY early. I woke up at 2:45 am ready to go. I put out the water and Gatorade and was at the gym ready to go at 3:30. We started out for an initial 12 mile loop. It’s amazing how many crazy people are out at 3:30 in the morning. What are these people doing? I know I’m nuts for being out that early, but when do people sleep?

During our 12 mile loop the skies opened up on us a few times. This actually felt great as it was 72° and felt like 100% humidity. The first 12 seemed pretty easy. We just got out and ran and relaxed knowing there was a long way to go.

When we got to the gym, we decided to “mix things up” on the next 10 and go out to the water stop “backwards.” Backwards from our “normal” 10 mile route. This just about killed me. It was too late to turn back when I realized we were running on a gradual uphill for 3 miles. It was everything I could do to get to our water stop. My legs have never felt so tired.

Our intended route back to the gym - running it “backwards” - would be over a lot of hills. There was no way I was going to be doing that. From this point, we had 2 options: Go back the same way we just came or Run the 3 miles back to the gym and only do a 20 mile run. That’s right, ONLY 20 miles. I let everyone know what the options were and waited for input. With some hesitation, the majority said it would be fine if we went back the same way we came (i.e. downhill for the most part). So off we went, back down 31W for the third time that morning, knowing when we reached the gym, we’d be done and have completed 22 miles.

I actually felt really good when we finished. I wasn’t hobbling around and I waited a couple of hours to take any ibuprofen. All in all, it was a great run. I officially feel ready for Columbus. It’s only 17 days away and I can’t wait!