18....20....eff.

Oh hey world.
Yep. Basically you should be used to our random/not at all reliable posts by now. But look on the bright side, when we do update, its like Christmas morning for you! So Merry Christmas to all six of you!

So we have been doing some long runs. And by long, I mean distances that one would usually bike. Or drive. Or call a cab for. Or ride a camel or horse. But apparently to be ready to run 26.2 miles, we actually have to run 18, then 20, then 20 again. When I first looked at the schedule, I remember thinking, "damn self. Running 20 miles is going to be terrible. Good thing its so far away!". Heh. 20 miles has come and gone, and let me tell you, its not fun. At all. Now, we had our fun moments, like standing on the side of John Nolan Drive, in the bushes and weeds, laughing histerically at NOTHING (This was mile 16....) while Alyssa yelled "So THIS is what a runners high feels like...I like it!!". Sorry Alyssa, I think we were just exhausted. Or the time that we saw geese out by the hospital, and Alyssa decided she had to save them from the oncoming traffic, so she ran at them flapping. When my ipod ran out of batteries, I think I actually cursed God (sorry God, I was just tired), and that too was funny. When we first left this morning at 6am, there was lightning everywhere, and we could have died. But I was a hard ass and made Alyssa keep going. Oops. I think we dropped the F-bomb more times than either of our Moms would be happy with (sorry Annemarie and Barb....). And somehow, we survived.

Now for all you people who actually care about the running part, we broke the 20 miles into 3 smaller runs. We started with 8, then stopped back at our apartment for food/gatoraid. Then we did 7, and stopped again. We finished with a walk/crawl of a 5 miles. The time we spent actually RUNNING, not counting water stops here (which we try to keep short), was 3:36.33. (Yes I timed it to the tenth....I'm anal.). That puts us at 10.08 minute miles, which is actually faster than we did during our 18 mile one. Im not sure why the improvement, maybe the cooler temps, or were just getting used to it mentally and physically. Ok well maybe not physically, because the thought of standing up right now makes me want to cry. I'm just glad its all over.

Our next "long" run is only 12 miles! I can't believe I'm excited that I only have to run 12 miles! Barf! After that we do another 20, then its taper until the marathon. 5 more weeks!....

Happy Labor Day!!
Katie (and Alyssa too!!)