I SURVIVED!!

Yep, I'm still alive after my 22 mile training run this past Saturday!! Actually, I'm doing great! I'm hardly even sore today & my knees are.....well, there about as good as they are going to get-LOL! I've decided that I can't get through this whole marathon experience without any knee pain, so I'll take what "relief" I can get. Overall, I'm feeling much more confident in my ability to actually pull this whole marathon thing off now (I wasn't so sure a few weeks ago).
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Saturday morning was far from ideal in terms of good running conditions, but I knew that in advance, so I just went with the flow. It was about 25 degrees when we started running, but my three "dri-fit" layers were keeping me warm enough. There was still some ice and snow on the trails, so a good part of the run was stop-n-go as we worked our way around the icy patches and over frozen bridges. At times it was comical as we clung to the sides of bridges to keep from falling on our butts.

Somewhere around mile 3 I decided that I wanted to shed one of my insulating jacket layers because I was getting a little warm already. THAT was a big mistake as I would learn just a mile or two later. Once we hit our uphill stretch on Nall up to 135th the wind was so strong that it was ripping right through my little fleece & I remembered why I loved that "wind-stopper" jacket so much. I think that is the coldest I have been on any of my runs & running INTO the wind only made the situation worse! Thankfully the uphill-running-into-the-wind stretch wasn't that long & I was reunited with my jacket around mile 9 (I had left it in someones car at a water stop). Lesson learned...tie my jacket around my waist next time (just in case).

There really isn't much more "drama" to share about this weekends run. This was by far one of my best long training runs yet, and I'm not even too sore today. So, there you go-LOL! Less drama, less pain....I think this might be as close as I'm going to get to being a "real runner"-LOL! I won't tell you how long it took me to run those 22 miles, because I don't think that's as important as the fact that I actually FINISHED them! That's the real success story in my book-LOL!

I said I would have pictures of this training run...but sadly I do not. Once again I brought my camera with me & forgot to go back to my car to get it when we were done. It's always so dark when we start running that I tell myself "I'll take pictures once the sun comes up" and then I totally forget to do that! Maybe it's just my subconscious avoiding having to post pictures of what I really look like at 5:30 am! I assure you, it's not a lovely picture!

*Oh, and I also want to thank my mentor Jodi for sticking by my side the whole way & talking me through those 22 miles. It's so much nicer to have someone to run with :-)

Here are the answers to everyone's favorite questions:
-"How do you keep your face warm...do your feet ever get cold?" *VASELINE! you put it all over your feet, face, and even your hands if you want. It really helps keep your feet warm and protected. And, "yes" your feet, hands, and face DO get cold sometimes, but it's not as bad as you would think.

-"So, how long is your marathon" *MY marathon is the same distance as everyone else's...26.2 miles. (this is by far the funniest question I get).

-"How long is it going to take you to run those 26.2 miles"
*Good question! I'll let you know after January 7th!

-"Do you think you will ever do another marathon?"
*I'd LOVE to, but I'm not so sure Jonathan would love it if I told him I was going to do another one!

-"How many miles do you run every week?"
*You might be surprised to hear that our training schedule is very light during the week. We typically only run between 6-9 miles during the week. You cross train on your non-running days. Then, Saturday's are the longer training runs. Cross training actually takes more time & effort then the actually running during the week.

**I just want everyone to know that if you've ever wanted to do something like this, it's very do-able. Even with three little kids and a very busy schedule! I hope that by the end of this whole "journey" I can inspire one other person to do this as well. It's been a very rewarding experience, and even very healing in some ways. I would love it if I got to do this again some day with one of my friends (wink, wink).