Finally 14

Well tonight I finally ran 14 miles. I can't tell you how many days I scheduled this run. But due to my ankle/blisters, insane heat, and other time commitments, it wasn't in my cards to run before tonight. I was nervous about heading out since I had not had a good run in awhile. (I did run a couple miles on Saturday to see how my feet would hold up.) I ran from my house, to Northbend, to Hamilton, to Galbraith, and back to Winton again. Then I ran down Winton to Winton Woods and back to my house, then around my neighborhood. The biggest problem with doing a run this long on a week night means that I was racing the sun. I took off as soon as I could after hearing about Jeff's day, nursing Grace, and stretching. It was close to 7. The first 3 miles weren't fun at all. My ankles, shins, and even my left knee was aching. Not horribly, but just enough to be a discouragement. I knew it normally takes my body awhile to warm up so I pushed through. And that's exactly what happened. The rest of the run felt really good. Since I was on a time crunch, I only stopped to walk/drink every 30 minutes instead of my usual 20. After an hour I tried some energy blocks...yum. The sun was setting when I got back to Winton Road so I flew down to Winton Woods. I was feeling good and it was mostly down hill. I though coming back up would be killer but I felt really strong coming back. It was dark as I turned into my neighborhood but I felt safe enough to keep running. In the end, I finished injury free, blister free, and I feel pretty good about that. My time was 2:12 which is an average pace of 9:29.