Another 26.2!!

Sorry about the blurry photo, but hopefully you can see the readout on the Garmin: 26.2 miles in 4 hours and 57 minutes!!  That's my PR by 15 minutes!  I was super excited when my friend, Holly called me over the weekend and asked if I wanted to do a 20 mile run with her today.  I haven't had a chance to run with her for a while and even though I did 12.6 miles with Chris on Saturday, and even though she is my little speedy friend who always pushes me to go a little faster than I normally would, I figured I could handle it and it would be a good chance for us to catch up on other things in our lives!  So we agreed on an out and back route leaving from her house this morning.

We were on the road by 8, once we got all the kiddos off to school.  We used the run/walk/run method, doing a 4 minute run to 1 minute walk ratio.  When we reached our half-way and turn around point, I mentioned to her that sometime I'd like to keep going from there, run across the freeway overpass and take the road on the opposite side of the freeway back home, a loop that would equal approximately 25 miles.  She said, "Want to do it today?  I know we were only going to do 20, but let's just do it!"  Okay!  We made our way across the freeway overpass, a bit of a scary endeavor I have to say, but so worth it to be able to run on a different road back home.  I also have to mention that the the first 10 miles were mostly uphill and we were both looking forward to running mostly downhill on the return 10, but since we changed plans, the new route involved many, many hills, two big hills that were pretty steep grade and over a mile long each!  My hamstrings were hurting at that point, but having someone to run with and talk to makes the time go by a lot faster.

I also have to mention something else cool that happened.  I had planted some extra water on our original route, which obviously wasn't going to help us on our new route.  But as we talked about it, we agreed that if things got really bad and we needed more water, we could just call one of our husbands to bring us some. Well at some point, a white utility-type truck drove past us, we waived but neither of us knew who we were waving at.  A couple of miles later, when we had reached approximately mile 20 of our run, the same truck pulled along side us again, going the opposite direction.  He slowed down and held out two fresh, cold bottles of water for us, at which point Holly recognized him as being a friend of their family.  He is also a runner, which is probably why when he saw we were so far from home he knew we were on a long run and was thoughtful enough to realize we might need some water.  It was awesome!  We drank some, then were able to use the rest to fill the bottles on our belts and that was plenty to get us through the last 6+ miles.

(Here we are after our run.  I've noticed I always have slumpy, sloppy posture after long runs.  Hmmm...tired, maybe?!)

Anyway, when we were within a mile of my friend's house, which was to be our stopping point, she looked at her Garmin and then asked me if I realized we were just over 24 miles at about 4 hours and 42 minutes?  That meant we had about 2 miles to go and 18 minutes to do them in if we wanted to do the full marathon distance in less than 5 hours.  So, with her keeping pace just in front of me and yelling words of encouragement at me, we decided to go for it and do those last two miles.  My legs were throbbing at this point because even though I've now done this distance 3 times this month, I've never done it pushing myself so hard, with increased speed and all those darn hills.  Still, there was no way I was going to miss the opportunity to PR when I was so close.  We ended up finishing right in front of my house, which was kind of cool!  So, I am now extremely happy to be able to say my marathon time - and it starts with a 4 instead of a 5!!