It's All Uphill From Here!

Today, Shelly and I ran our first "real" long run of our marathon training program. It's the first real run because we ran further today than we have ever run before (on one continuous run). We ran 15 miles on the Scenic Loop Road.

We carbo loaded last night at PF Chang's. I think I was pretty nervous because the dinner felt like a rock in my stomach as we were eating. This morning, I was definitely nervous before the run, as evidenced by 4 trips to the restroom before leaving the house (is this too much information? Sorry.). On my way out, I told Robert that I wasn't sure if I was feeling bad because I was nervous, or because of the dinner last night. "It's nerves," he grumbled, in a half-asleep state, "go out and run." So I did.

The run was pretty good! We had our Garmins with us (Shelly's ran out of batteries halfway through), our new packs of Clif Shot Blox (we're trying those instead of Sports Beans for variety), and good attitudes. We ran past the 6-mile mark on the Scenic Loop into uncharted territory. Our plan was to run 7.5 miles out and then turn around. There were some ridiculous new hills, including one incline that lasted almost a mile. As we came closer to the 7.5 mile mark, we saw a busy intersection ahead. Having passed our turnaround point, we ran up to the intersection just to see what road it was. We'd reached the Boerne Stage Road; the Scenic Loop Cafe was in front of us! I couldn't believe we'd run all the way to the Scenic Loop Cafe. We turned around and headed back.

The second half of the run passed by uneventfully, except for Shelly getting a rock in her shoe (as usual) and spilling a river of snot out her nose when she bent over to take off her shoe (again, TMI? Sorry.). Luckily, we had some Kleenex (and something to laugh about for a couple of minutes).

As we approached mile 12, we were running down a hill. We saw a cyclist at the bottom of the hill, and discussed whether we should move into the middle of the road so that he could proceed up the hill without having to swerve around us. As we came closer, I realized that we knew him...the cyclist was Robert! It was so cool to see him! He'd decided to surprise me and also get a workout in. I think seeing him gave me the energy to finish the run.

When we got to mile 13.1, we exclaimed that we'd just run a half-marathon, and every step beyond would be further than we'd ever run before. Although we ran into a little trouble with having a low supply of water, we finished the run happily and walked like grandmas into Roger Soler's Sports to buy a drink.

Hooray! Eight more runs, each one longer than the last, to go! (Not really, but it sounds impressive, doesn't it?) 16 miles next week.