So many things went wrong on this run. I'm wondering now how I can try to make up for it. My plan was to run 5 before Cath came, but the minutes in the morning just slid one into another after I woke up and groggily tried to prepare for the grueling (what should have been 23) run ahead. I got only 3 under my belt before Cath showed up 9:34/9:45/9:09. The plan was to run up to Big Springs from the house, which I estimated to be about 18 miles. My legs are still feelin' it from last week, but we kept a good pace 9:40's, stopped at Will's Pit Stop, filled our bottles at the mouth of the canyon. I was really thirsty, but only brouight my small hand-held. I can tell right now I began to dehydrate somewhere around mile 11. My Garmin had somehow lost a mile or more between my house and mile 12. I don't know how, but it played with my mind since my legs/hamstrings were so tight and I was relying on checking the splits in 3 mile incriments. Once we got past Nunn's Park and up onto the trail under Bridal Veil we were VERY surprized to learn the ENTIRE trail for the next 2-3 miles was 15 inches of solid ice or porous layers our feet would fall through and suck off our shoes. It was slow going 14 m/m for those two or three miles. I wonder if you can even count what we did as running. I was not breathing hard, but man it was tough to keep your feet moving without turning an ankle or falling. By this time I did not trust the Garmin mileage wise because it was showing 12 total, when I know for a fact it's at least 15 to Vivian Park. We stopped briefly at Vivian so I could stretch my ailing hamsrings and stated up the windy uphill grade to Big Springs. That was calculated torture. I wanted to end my 21-23 on that uphill grade in anticipation for the hills in Boston. I know a 7 mile slight uphill grade (particularly the last 3) is overkill, but it did feel good to get to the top, where I dry heaved for about 2 minutes. We then ran down 1 more mile where we caught our ride at south Park. I am THRASHED. I'm not sure about the mileage, I'm dissapointed our 'run' was broken up so badly between mile 13-15 by the snowy trail and ice and I'm not sure the incline at the end produced the kind of fatigue I was hoping to conquer. I was sore, more than tired, but mentally beaten. Catherine is counting the run as 18 miles, I'm counting mine as 22. I'll run two cool down in the evening to keep myself from going rigormortis. Fish oil, calcium, magnesium is on the menu. I have no idea how that work out will translate at Boston since our AP ended up being 10:45 and I stopped at least 5 times. I wanted a tough, fluid 23 mile run to get my confidence up for those last 6 marathon miles that always wreak havoc :( Oh well, I did what I could. | 