Happy Monday everyone (and Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian friends :) )!
This past weekend was incredibly chaotic and fun!
Kyle and I had our housewarming party on Saturday. I hope to post a recap of that some time this week, but I have to get photos from someone first!
Sunday was an equally hectic day, but in a more physically demanding way. I had my longest run to date (and my longest run until my first marathon!!)- a 20 mile run!
So thankful that my super sweet friend, Michelle, ran ~18 miles with me. She really is the nicest person ever. She kept encouraging me the whole time and made me do some rolling hills- which really sounds like punishment but it was for the best since my marathon will be mostly hilly. I’m sure I would have told you something different (and perhaps given you a certain hand gesture) as we tackled those hills around mile 15…
P.S. All the awesome running photos are courtesy of Michelle! Thanks Michelle!
But let’s go back a bit. We met up at Quarry Lakes at 6:45 AM.
We spent the first few warm-up miles on the trails. What’s nice about this location is that you can choose paved or unpaved routes.
At a time when I didn’t want to chop off my legs
We did a lot of (different) out-and-back loops. We wanted to make sure I got those dreaded hills in, plus we didn’t want to get too far away from the water fountains and restrooms. Not going to lie- nothing about this run was easy. My legs felt like lead the whole time. I think it was a combination of taking 2 weeks off (yes. 2 WEEKS!) from running due to illness+school+party planning, AND the fact that I had spent all of Saturday (from 8:30AM to 10PM) on my feet. Whoops. Note to self: don’t do this the day before your marathon.
One of the paved paths
Back on those rolling hills again. They weren’t super steep by any means, but I promise it was steeper than it looks in this photo.
Here we are at around mile 18. Michelle had to take off so I ran the last 2-ish solo. Good practice for race day!
Those last 2 miles were unbelievably hard. Actually I ran closer to 20.4 miles because I forgot to unpause my Garmin after a water stop, but I still wanted to end on an even 20 (and I promised Michelle that I would ;) ).
All of it was hard. Probably one of the hardest (physically speaking) things I’ve ever done. You long distance runners are beasts. I’m fairly certain I was going so slow that you could have walked past me. Unfortunately this was discouraging and all I can think about now is, what pace do I run at for my marathon??
I’m not making an time goals for this race, but I’m a numbers person. I need to know what pace to run at or I will go crazy. Should I go with my 15 miler pace where I was running hard? Or should I go with my 18 miler that I ran at an easier pace? Or am I just going to suck on race day and run at a super duper slow pace?
Clearly I’ve got some confidence building to work on during these taper weeks.
After my run and a LOT of eating, I headed out to my very first yoga class with my BFF, Shanna. We took a Vinyasa Flow class and I will be sharing more about my experience + a giveaway soon :)
What is the hardest thing, physically, you’ve ever done? I’m expecting some “giving birth” answers, which will make me feel like a weakling ;)
How do you determine your race pace?
Experienced marathoners- what pace should I go with?
What’s your favorite type of yoga?
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