Getting back to it

Had to go a little earlier than usual today since it was the first day of school!

Jenny and I went and followed the schedule and just did a 30 minute run with walking warm up and cool down.  felt good and not the typical really tough Monday.

Tomorrow we need to go even earlier and in the dark. I'm really going to miss the wonderful summer morning runs.

Went running early this morning with Desiree and Jenny.  We were surprised how warm it was - 80!

Did a kind of new route - didn't really like it.  too much on the busy roads and not enough shoulder to run on.  Don't think we'll do that again.

This morning we tried something different - intervals on the track at Brighton.  It was eye opening to see how out of shape I still am.  It really took it out of me to sprint.  After 2 miles on the track I did start to feel better and get into it.  It always takes me a couple of miles to warm up.  It was fun to see on my Garmin report that I ran mile 2 in 10:31 and mile 3 in 9:52.  after the marathon my next goal is to work on my speed and this is a good way to do that, I guess.

This morning we tried another new route - it was okay.  For Leslie's benefit I'll list it:

North on 2700 east from Jenny's, east on 7000 south up to Wasatch Blvd, south up the hill on wasatch (BIG, BIG hill that we walked), then west on Bengal and north again on 2700 east back to Jenny's.

It was really dark in spots and I felt like I was running blind.  Another problem was not enough shoulder on wasatch and too many cars.

We did have one fun thing - another runner joined us for just a little bit.  She's here on business from Nashville and we told her some routes she could take that would get her back to the Residence Inn in Old Mill area.

I loved running down Bengal and actually did a 10 minute mile there.

Jenny, Desiree and I just did walking this morning - taking a break and also stretching our muscles in prep for tomorrow's 18 miler!!  We're trying to decide on a route, any suggestions??

Three weeks  from today is the TOU!! I can't believe it.

18 was doable but our group kind of traded places today - I had a tough run and Desiree and Jenny both had a really good day.  That was good though so that they would decide to sign up for the marathon.  We met some nice people on our route today - almost everyone out there seemed to be doing 18 in prep for the fall marathons.

Mandy and Rachel ran with us for a little bit.  They are both doing marathons with fall - mandy is doing San Francisco and rachel is doing SGM for the first time.  Mandy told us she did SGM last year and ran a 5/1 interval and felt so good and had so much in reserve that she ran the whole last 8 minutes and sprinted at the finish. That was so encouraging to hear and gave us a lot of hope.

The best thing about the run today was that our good friend, Erica, did a SAG for us.  She used to run with us but had some previous injuries from a car accident (herniated disk) and then sprained her ankle so she hasn't been able to go.  So this morning she started out with us at 5:30 and did aid stations for us about every 1.5 miles for the first half of our run.  She had a little table out with water cups and then a little garbage can for our cups.  She'd made cute signs to encourage us and played inspiring music from her car.  It was a blast to have her out there with us.

I had a tough final 3 miles and really had to slow the pace down and then had to stop for a big bathroom break.  Des and Jenny kept going and ended up probably doing 19 miles.

We had another good friend, Julianne, come pick us up.  Thank goodness for all the support we get from friends.

Here's out stats:

18 miles / 3:36 / 12:02 avg pace - We felt like we improved a lot over the last long run - faster pace for a lot of the miles.  I think that might have something to do with how tough it was at the end for me.