Still Got It!

First, this has nothing to do with running. Thursday night my friends and I attended Puddles Pity Party at the Cleveland House of Blues, and this happened:

Best. Concert. EVER. I highly recommend you see him if he is in your area.

Second, I was worried that my foray into trail running would give me a sense of false confidence. That is, because I allow my self to walk any time I like on a trail, I worried that I would not be able to run on a flatter surface for an extended length of time. To test this theory, I decided to run 17 miles on the Towpath today (Sunday). The Burning River Goddesses have been so kind to me; they offered to either run the full 17 with me (Marta and Kelsie) or join me for part of the fun. Jen's husband Steve, who is an honorary Goddess and a rock star trail runner who is training for Burning River (the full Monty, folks), also offered to join me for the first 12 miles.

17 miles and .4 cool down walk on the Towpath with these badasses! Lots of turtles 🐢 on the logs. #akrun #secondsoleakrun #clevemarathonambassador @jennpierce517

A post shared by Stephani Itibrout (@itibrout) on Mar 26, 2017 at 8:51am PDT

So it was that Steve, Marta, Kelsie, and I started from Lock 29 at 8 AM. I was worried that I would hold them back, and I told them all to leave me whenever they felt that they needed to. . .but they didn't. One of my big problems is that I CAN run a good mid-pack pace, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I SHOULD run that pace, especially on the long runs. My goal was to finish strong and feel good, and to accomplish that, I knew I had to run much more slowly than I normally would like to run.

We all had a great discussion on the Towpath, sometimes running fast and sometimes running slowly. I was wearing my Cleveland Ambassador long-sleeved tech shirt, and within two miles I was ROASTING, although I looked super cool.

This is EXACTLY how I look when I'm roasting, but I'm rocking a super cool shirt.

After 9.5 miles, we were back at Lock 29, where I ate a banana, changed into a short-sleeved shirt, and used the bathroom. Then we joined up with Jen and Tracy for the rest of the run.  I'm not going to say it was easy because it wasn't, but I really enjoyed my run with everyone.  We saw turtles, lots of turtles:

This was one log of four in that section--all full of turtles. 

And we talked and bitched and laughed.

At mile 16.9, I decided that the kick had to come now, and I actually picked up the pace and ran very quickly (I'm not going to say I sprinted because I didn't) to the end. Then I had .4 miles to walk as a cool down. I am very pleased with how I finished. I felt strong, and although I felt sore, I still think it was a good run.

I have a while until I need to hit my 20 miler. While talking it through with Jen today, I decided that I'm going to hover around these middle miles for a while, which is what I did when I trained for my first marathon. I would like to get to a point where I say, "Oh. It's only 16 miles." Maybe then my 20 miler won't feel as awful as it did when I ran it for the Akron Marathon.

How is your training? Have you registered for the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon?  NO??? Well, you can register here today, or you can check out the Cleveland Marathon Ambassadors to see who is giving away a race entry. Join me! You know you want to see how I handle running this marathon by myself (unless you want to run with me???).  Until then, run happy, Peeps!

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