Thursday and Saturday

Several of us met at 5:30 on Thursday so we could try to finish early (or on time) so we could get started with the rest of our day.

Hot and humid, but all in all, a good run.

Thursday
5.11 miles
53:09 ~ 10:24/mile
Maria wasn't able to run her long run on Saturday, so I offered to go with her on Sunday. Charlie had his 1st marathon training run on Saturday and since he's volunteered or I demanded that I have my group runs intact until Labor Day, I thought it would be nice for him to go with his group.

We contacted another Jane to go with us on Sunday, but she opted to run solo, so it was just the two of us. We decided to do the same route that the group had done on Saturday and by 6:15, we were off.

I felt good all the way into Bur-Mil. Of course, I had my usual moans and groans about certain long, gradual hills and what not, but we were doing well and had settled in. By the time we were to turn around (at mile 5), I was having some tummy issues and luckily, we discovered that there were some port a jons set up for a bike race taking place later that day. Thank you, mountain bikers!

After that little rest, my legs felt like they weighed a ton. It seemed to take forever to get back in a groove again, and then we got to our favorite hills. Ugh. I had to walk some of the hills and that always frustrates me.

Once I got over the last hill and back on the road headed toward GMP, I felt OK. It was getting warm and by now, I felt like every other runner we passed was bounding and looked way too fresh. I wanted to say, "I'm running 10 miles today and we're almost through. I have an excuse why I look this way!"

I was excited to see that we were going to end up hitting 10 miles while still on Grease Alley and by some unknown power, we hit 10 right before the hill. Hallelujah! We also ran into Liz right before this, so at least we were still running and not walking!

It was nice to have a bit of a cool-down walk because we usually don't take the time to do it. I felt OK during this run (with the exception of the humidity and walking the hills), but it took it out of me for the rest of the day. I was done. I did manage to get in some good stretching and I'm happy to report that the first 10 miler of training is done. I'm hoping for no humidity and no hills for our next, but somehow I don't think that will happen. : )

Saturday
10.00 Miles
1:50:00 ~11:00 / mile