SNOW!!! In February??? Where am I, back in WI or something????

On paper this should not have been a good run.

Elise has been not only teething her two year molars, but she also has had quite an awful bug complete with fever and not sleeping through the night.  Mike has pretty much stepped into the roll of Elise's caretaker, complete with him getting sick right after she did.  He tries so hard to give me breaks so I can still get my training runs in.

Last night though was the roughest night of the week culminating into about three or so hours of broken sleep for both Mike and I.  At several points throughout the night, I was tempted to text Alma, my running partner for the day, to tell her I would not be running first thing in the morning rather I would have to figure out a time to run later after somehow getting some rest.

As luck would have it, Ryan had a rough night too and woke for the day at 545.  I knew at that point there was no sense doing anything other than getting up and going for my run.  I knew Mike would be left dealing with the kids so I let him sleep for a bit until I had to leave.  I just had to go with what Dimity at Run Like A Mother always says "Don't think, just go".

I set myself up with just about zero expectations.  I knew I would somehow someway get 15mi in, but I figured it would be very slow and full of walking breaks.

I got to the rendezvous point (aka. The Sammammish River Trail head) and met up with Alma one of my diehard running buddies.  She and I have run in some pretty crummy weather together, including 7mi of pouring rain.  She paid me the compliment of assuming I was a Seattle-ite because I showed up and was willing to run in said pouring rain.  She lives in South Seattle and was willing to come up here to my neck of the woods to run.  Down at her house, no rain!  In fact it was pretty nice.  We started out and it was a really thick rain that quickly turned into flurries.  Well we were there so we started to run.  Wouldn't you know it, it started to really snow!

It may be hard to see but that was our view of the river with snow

Alma at the turn

Me at the 4mi turn

I had told Alma earlier in the week that we needed to keep the run slower.  She and I actually keep a perfect pace.  We get to talking and we sometimes pick it up, but for some reason I can feel us picking up the pace and can slow us down.  That is something I have yet to figure out how to do by myself.  When it is just me, I feel like I need to push and push and push faster and faster.  We kept it between 9-930 and that was great!
I won't lie things were getting tough near the end of our 8mi together.  I don't care what anyone including the Champion company says, their "Tech" shirts that are supposed to be wicking are NOT.  In fact they are horrible for long runs in general!  I felt like I was lugging an extra 20lbs!  Of course I was dragging along some extra lbs. The snow had turned to rain and had soaked us through completely!
In fact Alma was a true life saver.  She had along extra dry shirts and let me borrow one for the second half of my run.  I felt like a new woman, until I started running again.  Boy were those shoes wet and heavy!

I started out on mile eight pretty slow.  I went out without music because I wanted to see how that went.  I could feel how slow I was going so I checked the Garmin and wouldn't you know it, I was at about a 11mm.  I was like "I can go faster than this" so I just started running a little faster.  I had decided earlier that I would be ok with walking and I would just let the Garmin go.  I gave up checking it obsessively like I tend to do when I am going fast.  Instead I kept an eye on it to see my miles tick by and checked the pace every now and again.  Instead I just checked int with my body to see how I was doing.  For the most part I kept a pace that was really comfortable.  My breathing was easy I did not feel fatigued.
At about mile 10 I felt like I needed to walk.  I hadn't taken in much for fuel early in the run so I took a GU and had some Nuun.   I kept the Garmin going as I thought I would have to take a longer break than about 10sec. but I felt so much better I started to run pretty much right away.  I was back to feeling great!

I turned around for the finish at 11.5mi.  I actually ran into a Leap Day 5k race.  I actually was fun running against the traffic of the race.  A girl even said "Great Job-Keep It Up"  I of course told her great job back.  It was fun to see all the couch to 5k runners/walkers.  I remember when I started running and it made me happy for them that they took the plunge.  Lots of grimaces but even more happy faces.  I caught a few giving me funny looks but when you have snow on your hat, dew and steam coming off your pants and you are soaking wet when it is not raining (because it finally stopped dumping on me) you stand out as looking a little funny!

These are actually black running tights, but you can see the dew accumulating on them.  There is steam as well, but that is hard to capture.

I got to 13mi and I had to take a quick break, partly because it was time for fuel and partly because it kind of took me a minute to realize how far I have come in my training.  A half marathon is just a blip on my Garmin instead of an accomplishment.  WOW!!

Today's Half Marathon.  A little slower than the last, but I also had less weight to push around that time!

After a quick pic and some fuel, it was time to finish.  Only two more miles and I actually felt like it would be no problem.  I in fact had to remind myself to slow down for the last mile.  I had done such a good job of sticking to a good pace, I needed not to hurt myself in the last mile.

I finished with these splits:

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	2:25:23.5	15.02	9:41
1	9:22.1	1.00	9:22
2	9:07.6	1.00	9:08
3	9:17.8	1.00	9:18
4	9:21.4	1.00	9:21
5	9:31.9	1.00	9:32
6	9:36.9	1.00	9:37
7	9:38.4	1.00	9:38
8	9:30.6	1.00	9:31
9	10:18.2	1.00	10:18
10	9:59.9	1.00	10:00
11	10:29.8	1.00	10:30
12	9:40.3	1.00	9:40
13	9:49.0	1.00	9:49
14	9:46.2	1.00	9:46
15	9:42.0	1.00	9:42
16	:11.4	0.02	10:17

It wasn't all sunshine and roses though.  I normally am kind of picky of what food I eat the night before.  Last night supper was KFC as I took Elise to the Dr.  Not only was it KFC, but I shoveled it into my mouth at break neck pace as I was starving!!  It lead to a really funny tummy first thing in the morning and before my GU at mile 10, I actually threw up a little in my mouth and it was horrible.  Thank God the GU kept it down!  I also realized in my last mile I had to pee so bad it was killing me!  I was not going to stop to go in the field because of two reasons.  One-I was too close to the end to take another break and two-I was pretty sure there was not a chance in HELL I could hold myself in a squat position  for even two seconds let along long enough to actually finish the job!

I've noticed these posts get longer as the miles get longer.  no surprise there.  I did find something interesting this week to make me want to keep even more details from here on out.  I was super stoked to find out that Blurb will turn your blog into a book very similar to the photo books you can make online.  I have pretty much decided that I will be making one of these as a gift to myself after the 26.2.  This also means I will be keeping even my small weekly runs on here so I can have a diary of all of my training.

Well that is it for today.  I had a long story to tell, but I sure am glad I got it down.  

Happy Finishing Face