18 miles

I looked on my training calendar and noticed that Wednesday I had 18 miles to run, to this date I have only run 14 miles and I started to get a little nervous. Naturally I started to think of reasons to delay the run to the weekend and when I talked to Steve my Coach he said the weather was going to be cool and a pretty good day for a long run. I decided that I would get it done and and as I was driving home from work Anne called to say she would really like Rob's help to put up the first set of shutters in the home and she wanted to do that tonight. I called Rob and he said that it was Hil's birthday and they would love to come over and help, I guess they will celebrated the birthday later. I then thought it would be a good idea to get a cake and some ice cream and invited the family over. Everyone said yes and by 8:30pm we had a full blown party going on. I crawled into bed at 11pm after getting everything set-up for the run and tried to fall a sleep. The alarm went off at 4:45 am and I hit the start button on my training watch by 5 minutes to the hour. My plan was 3 miles at 11 min per mile, 3 miles at 10:30 per mile, so on down to 8:30's for my final 3 miles. The night was still all around me and I thought I would not see the sun rise until I hit my turn around 9 miles or 1.5 hours later. I really enjoyed the calm morning and the slow pace and worked hard to maintain that because I know a few hours later I would be hurting and working hard since the course I decided to go on ended up hill. The turn around came pretty quickly, I was doing well with water and felt really good as I started the way back. Miles 10-14 were climbing rollers and 15-18 were pretty flat. 10 and 11 were OK but by 12 I started to fill tired and feeling the effects of running on little sleep for over 2 hours. I pushed through the hills and rewarded myself with a little walk at 15, I then noticed how taxing this really was on my body. 16-18 went smooth with my pace between 8-9 minute miles the rest of the way in. I arrived back home at 7:55 am and the house was awake. The kids were watching TV when I came in and they did not notice the huge smile on my face or did they know what their Dad just did but I felt great and hurt a lot also. I soaked in cold water and warm for the next 30 min and then started my day. Anne was really proud and I have been on a high for the last 24 hours. I really ran 18 miles and made it alive. Just think I might be able to finish the ST. George Marathon in 5 weeks alive and happy. For now I will just enjoy the victory of getting it done. I ran 18 miles.

I love you Anne,