Great run today and so happy to end this difficult week on this note! Needed a buddy to do a long run with so met up with some girls I didn't know that a mutual friend hooked me up with. Tammy & Allison were so nice to let me tag along! They were doing 18 and I decided yesterday that I didn't have that in me this week so I met them for the last 11.3. I loved that they had a little faster pace than my friends I normally run with. We had 2 water breaks and even with breaks averaged about 10:20. So I think when we were running it was close to 10 min. miles. This morning before the run I took IBProfen because my shins are still stiff. Then I had a little dry cereal & water- would have had 1/2 a banana but was out. After mile 2 I had 1/2 GU and 1/2 GU at mile 7. Felt good this run, a bit faster than comfortable pace, I was able to talk & keep up fine, but felt I couldn't slack off at all- which was really a good challenge for me. The last 3 miles the girls were going on a steady incline back to their cars and I was going to go with them and have them drive me back to my car where I met up w/ them at their mile 7- but the incline was killing me, so I headed back down to my car and actually did a little more distance than planned (I was only planning on a 10 miler) but it was downhill & flat back to my car. SO- I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't handle the 3 mile incline at end, but I was grateful that I felt so good and enjoyed my pace for the first 7 miles... Overall very good run. Didn't quite get the mileage in that I wanted this week, but I think my body was demanding a recovery week after recently upping my mileage the last couple weeks. Looking forward to next week. | 