I did it! 14 hilly miles at 7000+ feet! All after the BIGGEST meal ever last night! I ran the first 7.62 miles on a packed urban trail and a forest trail with my husband and took a Gu at 5 miles. We kept the pace between about 10:10 and 10:25 during that segment. The effort felt the same as a normal long run in Phoenix. Then we stopped at the car, and I got out the new fuel belt. We split up at that point because my husband wanted to run fewer miles so he wouldn't exacerbate his foot pain. I then ran about 1.5 miles on concrete, up and down a GIANT hill to get in some good downhill. Then I got back on the urban trail for the rest of the run. It started getting hot after a while, and I ran out of water and Gatorade about .5 miles from the end. That stupid thing is going to take some getting used to! It sloshes around and adds an extra 5 pounds. I took another Gu at mile 10 and stopped to stretch and mess with the fuel belt at 11.7.
I slowed down a bit toward the end and really wanted to walk, but didn't. I was surprisingly happy to see that my average pace for the whole run was 10:25, much faster than my last long run up here, I think. My legs are very sore now, and I'm not sure why, because I ran most of the run on a soft surface. I hit about 43 miles this week, which seems to be my upper limit for now. I'm looking forward to next week as a recovery week, and then increase the mileage into the mid-40s after that. Although my average pace was much slower than normal, I'm very happy with the run. I always have a hard time at altitude. Yeah!
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