Today was one of the most epic runs I have ever done. Clyde and I needed to do another 30 mile run so we planned to go out by Little Black Mountain and do 3 loops. Each loop is right at 10 miles. I ended up having to use the commitment pattern (Clyde's words not mine) to get him to go. We both knew it was going to be muddy and wet but we just needed to get it done. The first loop consisted of a ton of mud for the first 2 or so miles and then their was snow on the ground for the rest of it. We kept it nice and relaxed and ended up doing the first lap in 1:15. Not bad considering the conditions. The second loop was supposed to more of a quicker tempo run where we picked up the pace a little. The sun warmed up everything so it was even more muddy. Clyde said he had a side stitch but then proceeded to pick up the pace even more. He said after wards that his side stitch went away. We ended up doing this loop in 1:07. We were both really happy with this one because the road was in really bad conditions. Thanks Clyde for getting frisky and pushing the pace even more :) The final loop was a lot of "fun." We couldn't believe how much mud we were running in at the first. The road got better and we ended up keeping the pace honest and finished the final loop in 1:12. The problem with running today was we ended up dragging mud all 30 miles on our shoes. This added more weight which didn't help. Also, the footing was pretty slippery so we were "ice skating" at times. We even sunk down in mud about 3-4 at times. You had to be careful with your footing. We finished the run in 3:34:20 though for the full 30 miles. Clyde and I were really stoked after we finished. We feel good going into our race in a couple weeks. We ended up taking some good pictures to verify we did the run. Clyde should have them on his blog or on his Facebook page.
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