9.1

9.1 miles~1 hr 42 min~ 11:12 pace

Holy Crap. 9 miles is long. I have no idea how or why people train for 26.2 or ultra-marathons. But, I finally feel like 13.1 is going to be just fine! I text my running buddy Candi this morning and asked if she was interested in joining me for a mid-afternoon run. She hasn't run more than 3 miles since October, but she was up for the challenge. As we were leaving her house, her neighbor Marcie popped her head out to see what we were doing. We begged her to join us and she gave into the peer pressure. Marcie hasn't run at all since October but she was able to do the whole 9 miles. At one point, I wanted to push her into lake we were running next to :) We decided to run on the bike trail to Culver's. Carter had the nerve to ask if I would bring him back dinner. Ugh. The run went pretty great. Perfect weather. Cross-winds were bad in the beginning, but we still had fresh legs, so it was do-able. We ran the 4.5 miles to the trails center and I used the bathroom before we headed back. At about mile 7.5, my calves were cramping bigtime, but I was able to adjust my stride to offset the pain. They are currently still hurting, so I'm sure tomorrow morning I'll want to die! This is the very first run that I didn't use my headphones. Can't believe it! We talked a lot and stayed together so I guess that made the run seem to pass faster. I plan to run two nights this week and then a long run next weekend (even though I'll be in Chicago for soccer and the temps will be back down in the 40s).