Seventeen Miles Later and Feeling on Top of the World!

Guess what? I ran 17 miles yesterday! That was the farthest I've EVER ran! Also, guess what? I'm farther in my training that I made it to last year! VICTORY! I feel so accomplished and even better about running 26.2 miles in a couple months. I felt amazing during and after the run yesterday and am not as sore as I thought I would be today.

So, Blake and I got up at 5:30 AM yesterday to get ready for the run. I ate half of a whole-grain bagel and about eight-ten ounces of Gatorade about 45 minutes before we ran at 6:30 AM. We drove to Silver Springs in Stow, which is part of the Cleveland Metroparks. It was really foggy and dark out when we first started off. It was nice though. It was cooler than our usual 9 or 10 AM runs. We saw quite a few fellow runners out about an hour into our run. A few other runners who passed us asked how far we were going and what we were training for. At first, I felt ashamed that these guys were passing us, but then when they told us how far they were running (seven to eight miles) and heard that they've ran quite a few marathons, I didn't feel so bad. Running double their distance made me feel a little better about them passing.

I wish I had a camera on me. It was so beautiful and green everywhere. If you've never ran at Silver Spring, you need to! There are a couple bigger hills, but for the most part, it's a nice, flat path. From mile one to mile 10 I was apprehensive about the pain I would soon feel around mile 13-16. But, fortunately, it really never came. I never got to the point where I cursed at myself and legs in my head, where I wanted to just keel over and die! It actually felt quite good! At around mile 13, I wanted to go faster and felt invincible! Those endorphins really kicked in! I kept asking Blake if we could go faster, but he didn't want to run out of gas. Which, was probably a good idea. We ran at about a 9:45-10 minute-mile pace for the most part. Except we walked up two humongous hills and stopped for a potty break. We ran 17 miles in two hours and about 52 minutes. Not bad! Especially for our first 17-mile run!

Nom nom! I sure did deserve it!

Afterwards, I felt AMAZING, on top of the world! It felt good to complete so many miles all before 10 AM. I even treated myself. We stopped at a Circle K to get some CHOCOLATE milk. Last time I only took a few sips, but this time I drank the whole 16 ounces of it! It was orgasmic... Oh, how I've missed chocolate milk! After that I wasn't really even hungry, so I showered and got ready to head to PA to see my dad with my sister, Lindsey and Grandma. Then I didn't eat lunch until 12:30 PM, which was a turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread with lettuce (Iceberg - BLAH), cucumber and mustard with some yogurt and a banana. I was sleepy most of the day, but not too sore. Even today, I'm not all that sore! I attribute it to the chocolate milk. :-)

Today is SUNDAY! YAY! Normally it's a long-run day, but boy am I glad we ran yesterday! I think today I'm going to do my Jackie Warner circuit training. Then I'm going to take it easy for the rest of the day.

Have a great Sunday! :)