The 14 miler...

Well, as I write this, we are still without power. I'm typing this from the St. Louis Bread Company. They have expensive soup and sandwiches, but FREE Wi-Fi and electricity to charge my phone. This power thing is just a minor inconvenience compared to what could have happened. I'm thankful that our house is not damaged from the storm and my family and friends are safe. Also, we do have places to go to get a break from the heat. So, this is just a test of patience as we approach day 4 without electricity.

But on yesterday, one could not ask for a more perfect day to run. The weather at 6:00 am was in the mid 60s. Since it was so cool and also since our coach was not going to be there this time, we decided to get a late start. So we go to the training site at 7:30 to start the 14 miler. DH and I made our first lap of Forest Park. All was well and I was on pace. We even ran into another teammate who just finished. He commented on how amazed at the ease of the run. I really believe that pressing through the humidity helped in more ways than we realized. But as we started on the second set of 6 miles, I began to slow down. I was walking a whole lot more that I needed to and at one point I saw DH move farther and farther in front of me. Finally, I could not see him at all, and I knew I was on my own.

I ran through walk breaks and walked mid way through run times. My whole pace time was off. But I finished the second lap. As I approached the end of the second lap, I saw DH and told him that I would wait for him at the car as he finished the final two miles. I'm disappointed in myself for not completing the remaining two miles, but I'm determined to finish our 15 miler even more so now. I'm really learning a lot about myself in this whole process...

With that, here's what happened.

First 6 miles. 1:20.02 13:20 min/mile pace
Second 6 miles. 1:29.00 14:50 min/mile pace

Overall 2:49.02 14:05 min/mile pace...