Longest run EVER

Well, not ever since in two weeks I'll do a longer run then another longer run two weeks after that and so on and so on, but today on our Disneyland Half Marathon training calendar was a six mile run. I did a five mile run two weeks ago and it wasn't too bad. I did it alone since Jen was busy doing the Warrior Dash with Michelle and Dani that day. The last 0.3 miles was insanely hard, but I pushed through. Did I blog about that run? I don't think I ever did.

Anyway, I was actually looking forward to today's run which I never thought I'd say. Jen got here at 6:30. I had mapped out our route using a pretty cool website, MapMyRun.com. We hopped in Jen's car to stash some water along the route so we didn't have to take it with us, then once we were back at my house we were off. The first 2.5 miles were along a route I'd done before and wasn't too bad. I had some breathing issues around 1.5 miles but after walking about 15 seconds I was fine and kept going. I walked one more short time before getting to our first water stop that was right around mile 3. Man did that water taste awesome. And it felt great to pour some all over me, although it was kind of gross how quickly it dried while running at 7:30 AM. Summer is arriving in AZ, that's for sure. I had taken along a packet of Gu but didn't think to have it at our water stop, so I had it around mile 3.5 or so. Ugh. It was my first time ever using it and the texture of it was NASTY. I was kicking myself for not having taken it at our water stop so I could have at least gotten the slimy texture out of my mouth. The last 2 miles (our second water stop was at mile 4) weren't too bad, surprisingly. I kept thinking how awesome it would be to jump in my pool when I got home and debated if I should do it with running clothes on or strip to my sports bra and panties. Seriously, that was what kept me going. You know what's amazing? How long the very last 0.10 mile of your run can take. I kept checking the GPS running app on my phone once we hit 5.90 miles to see if we were almost there.

Our total time was 1:10:53 with an average pace of 11:49. I think it was actually a bit faster than that because I forgot to hit pause right away when we stopped for our second water break. I was pleased with it...I figured anything under 12:00 was pretty decent for my first time running that far.

So the training continues. I'm pretty pleased with myself that I ran six miles today. SIX MILES!!! That's freakin' awesome!! [insert pat on back here] Our next long run will be more than half the distance of the half marathon!