14 Miles of Training and 107.66 Miles For July

Oh my God, Wow, incredible. I set my alarm last night at some godawful 12:30 plus time frame to get up at 3:30 AM, barely 3 hours of sleep, because I also iced my left shin for a while in bed. I fell asleep and woke up at 1:10 or so and took the ice off and promptly went back to dreamland. The next thing I knew my cell phone was ringing and it was 4:05 AM, one of my running buddies was calling to confirm we would run today. In a frantic motion I got dressed and ready, and he picked me up at 4:25 instead of 4:15. No time to sit and wake up as I heated my shins up with a heating pad. I did get some heat on the left one, and thankfully neither were hurting much if at all from the 5k at midnight.

We were off and picked up our other running partner. I had grabbed things as I ran out of the house (OFF spray, Garmin, wallet, cell phone, bottle of water, visor, hand towel) and we were on our way. At the partners house I got in the back seat and in the process I dropped first the can of OFF and broke the plastic lid/cap but if you held it right it would still spray. Then I dropped the Bio-Freeze and it rolled away from me. That took a while to find in the dark and it turned out to be in the middle of the street. Now totally collected we were off again to our running route.

We put out bags of water/gatorade at 3/6/9/12 miles. Side note here that my two partners have been doing this alot longer than I have and have had water bags mistaken for trash and have had to recover them from trash cans, so now they attached preprinted labels that explain it is NOT TRASH but fuel for runners in training and PLEASE do not throw away.

We did a rather circuitous route through various areas of Oklahoma City and Nichols Hills, yes I do mean hills, not tall ones, but still they count as an elevation change associated with a larger number and while on foot they might have well Mt. Everest at several points. I love running, oh yes I do indeedy. But why do we have to have hills on a route. If I wanted hills I could have stayed in Colorado or Wyoming for the weekend.

Before I forget....somewherer around the completion of mile 7...I surpassed 100 miles for the month of July...woohhoooooooo!!!!!!! Yes I'm excited about that...I feel great in fact. Not much pain in the shins, way less in fact that I had invisioned after doing 14 miles on top of a 5k race last night.

Someone wrote about things they saw this week along their running route, so I thought it would be interesting list things that we noticed:

Nails
Beer Bottles
Beer Cans
Pennies
Dead Bird
Bunnies (yes these bunnies were still alive)
Dogs (all on leashes thank the Lord)
Dead Cat
Dead Cat Odor (pee yewwwww)
Old Sock
Squirrel (alive)
Beautiful Full Moon
Glorious Sun Rise
Gallons of Sweat!!!!!!

We did 14 miles exactly for our early morning efforts. I can't believe I lasted that long. I got very big compliments from both of my partners for enduring the 5k at midnight and then sticking out this long run just a few scant hours later. They both felt I finished strong which made me feel very good.

Total Distance: 14 miles
Times:
Mile 1: 16:45
Mile 2: 15:12
Mile 3: 13:20
Mile 4: 14:00
Mile 5: 16:07
Mile 6: 13:11
Mile 7: 14:57
Mile 8: 13:06
Mile 9: 13:47
Mile 10: 13:22
Mile 11: 14:17
Mile 12: 12:47
Mile 13: 14:22
Mile 14: 13:26
Total Time: 3:18:38
Avg Pace: 14:11
Avg HR: 140
MAX HR: 164

We conveniently parked our vehicle at a local dining establishment that serves a great breakfast so after we had cooled down we went inside for breakfast.

On the way home we stopped at one of our local specialized running stores and I bought two new pairs of running shorts for $10 each. After getting home and getting cleaned up Bonnie and went back to the same store where she bought several new running tops and shorts as well as 2 running skirts (a first for her). Then we went to the other local running store where we've been buying our shoes because she had some foot problems last night. She got forefoot inserts to help her stop "toe clawing" as she runs and of course we had to purchase some other apparel while there. I got 3 more pairs of running shorts, a tank top and matching shorts that look somewhat like the stars and stripes, and...AND another pair of Brooks shoes (Vapor 7's). I'll try to get a photo of them tomorrow sometime. They were on sale ok!!!!!

This was Crazy Sale Days in Edmond, OK and everyone that does retail was having a sidewalk sale of some sort. So overall we did really good on our buys, some of them were 75% off, most were 50% off.

I did get about an hour nap this afternoon and I'm sitting here rather content with myself and all that I/we accomplished this weekend.