12 miles of awesome.

So this weekend was a bit crazy. But at the same time it totally wasn't. I think my definition of crazy is a lot different from other people's. Anyway, Friday was work most of the day and then a date that night. Saturday is where the real fun came in. I had work from 11 to 4, which made me think- do I want to do a long run before or after work? Before would require waking up at 7, so obviously that meant I was running after work. Hahaha. So I texted my sis-in-law Heather and asked her if she wanted to be crazy and run 12 or so miles with me at 5 in the afternoon. Luckily we're both training for the Halloween Half so of course she said yes!

We decided to start at Vivian Park, at the top of the Provo River trail. We ran the first two miles super fast, and the whole time I was thinking, there's no way we can keep up this pace for 12 miles. We should probably slow down. So I tried reining back a little bit, but then decided to heck with it! We were gonna finish no matter what! Those first six miles were in the canyon on the river trail, and it was soooooo gorgeous! Why can't AZ have fall colors like this?! Haha, we just go from green-ish to brown. Anyway, the whole trail was covered in yellow, red, and orange leaves. So pretty! It made the miles go fast. It made me even more excited for the Half this Saturday, because the majority of it is in the canyon, the finish line is less than a mile outside the canyon.

So we stopped around mile 6, ate some GU, took a short walking break, and we were off again! By the way, the GU I ate tasted like chocolate frosting. Can you say amazing?! Haha. So we cruise down University Avenue, hit a long hill at mile 8 that we KILLED, and somehow make it back to Heather and Dustin's house after just over two hours of running. We were just amazed at how freaking amazing that run had been! We kept up an even pace the entire time, and the miles flew by so quickly. We had to wait around for a while so Dustin could get back with the car so that we could drive back up and get mine (he didn't realize we needed her car). The whole way we were just saying over and over, "That was awesome." haha! Our knees hurt a little bit from the downhill but I was mostly worried about shin splints. That was the farthest I'd ran since June, and twice as far as I ran last week! Luckily the next day I was sore, but not in a bad way :) Which made me very happy!

Anyway, after that run I just KNOW we are going to kill the Half. I want to break at least 2:15, but we might be able to pull a 2:10 if we race smart. Wish us luck!