Today was the day we ran our long run. We had to run it without the rest of the class that we normally run our long runs with. Let me tell you I am really surprised at how hard it is to run the long runs without the group. Our group runs on Saturdays and we were out of town on Saturday so we had to take matters into our own hands.
I keep saying this and I know it starts to sound cheesy and like it can't be true every time but...this was my best run yet. This run was hard and our longest yet and I kicked it's butt. We ran it in under 11 minutes a mile! That is really great for me. Plus the gain on this run was 125 ft. It was actually up hill the whole way. Well there were some small down hill portions but for the most part it just kept going up.
The coolest part was we just ran to my mom's house. Then we had her give us a ride home. And trust me my dawgs needed the ride home. This one was tough! Stopping for the traffic lights was killer.
I also got a new app yesterday! I got the MapMyRun app with a one year subscription for their extra features. The feature that I really really wanted was the one that allows friends and family to watch your progress in real time as you run. I wanted this for safety. Sometimes me and Chris run at the same time but not at the same pace so when he gets done he can check on me. Totally Awesome. Even if I haven't figured out how to work it yet.
This thing is starting to get a little real around here. Chris asked our coach what we were going to need to do to be ready for the first training run for the marathon. We will need to increase our long run distance by one mile a week! We need to get up to 10 miles. 10 MILES!
I was exhausted after our run today. It will be interesting to see how in the world I am going to get to 10 miles.
So for this up coming year Chris had two goals for the year of his 40th birthday, he wanted to run another Tough Mudder and he wanted to run a half marathon. Knowing how important this was to him I took the lead. We started running again right away. At first we just started going to the Pack Pint Run at Red Coyote. Red Coyote is our local running store and now one of our favorite places but that is another post and so is the Pack Pint Run. The point here is that we started running locally and my ears were to the ground to find a Tough Mudder and a half marathon to run.
The Tough Mudder was going to be the tricky one but as luck would have it the plans just fell into our laps. Since we had done a Tough Mudder in the past I get emails from them. A couple weeks after we had talked about what our goal was going to be I got one of these emails anouncing that there would be a Tough Mudder in Oklahoma this year. AWESOME! I had originally wanted to look for a Mudder out of state for the adventure but staying close to home allows us to put together a team that will make running the race much easier...well easier is not the word. More possible to complete without injury. So only a couple weeks in to planning and we had our Tough Mudder picked out. That seemed easy enough.
The half marathon was the easy choice. We have an awesome marathon/half-marathon that happens right here in OKC. The Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon was the obvious choice for our half marathon run.
So the next step was to start figuring out how we were going to train for these events. While running a 5k we talked to some other participants and realized that Red Coyote had a 10k training program with a coach and everything. This was going to be perfect. We could train for and run a 10k in December. It was going to be a good start. Then Red Coyote had another training program that started the first of the year to train for the half marathon. It is designed to end right when the OKC Memorial Marathon is scheduled to run. It was perfect.
So to recap, our plan was to train for and run a 10k and then go straight into training for a half marathon. We would run the half marathon in April and then run the Tough Mudder in May. It all seemed so innocent and fun. Plus we were going to have our major goals for the year checked off the list before the year was even half over.
Now is when the crazy part happens. We were running a Pack Pint Run the last week and decided that before we left we should go ahead and sign up for the half marathon training program. We signed up and we started looking at the start date, what days of the week we would be training, and what date the final half marathon run would be on...THE MARATHON IS ON MY BIRTHDAY!!! That is going to be so cool! Then these words slip from my lips "Think how cool it would be to run a full marathon on your birthday." Innocent. We both agree that it would be cool and then move on to other things.
The next morning I wake up and its all I can think about. How cool would it be to accomplish that kind of feet on my birthday. I decide to just mention it one more time to see what the reaction will be. Again innocently...or not. "You know I was thinking about it and it really would be cool to run a full marathon on my birthday. I know its crazy, there is no way we could run that far." And the response I got, "It's on your birthday. I don't see how we can not at least try to run the full." Oh no!
That's right we are going to attempt to run the full and I have decided I am going to need lots and lots of motivation and I need ways to hold myself accountable. This blog is the accountable. I know lots of people have done it this way and it has helped so I hope it helps me too. Lets start this crazy adventure!
In Full Disclosure: This may or may not have been all my idea (as described above) but I can't leave any room for me to blame someone else in the future when I'm thinking back and thinking it was a really bad idea.
