On todays agenda was a 2.75 hr run. As usual, I met up with my buddy Leslie. Pretty much immediately she knew something was wrong with me. We had been running for over a minute and I hadn't started gabbing away. She was correct, stomach was a little off today, again. So instead she took over the gab fest and did quite well I might add. She's obviously learned from the best! haha.
I kept pushing on because I've had stomach issues for so many years now that I know how to just plod along and try to ignore it. Either that or I just burp....a lot! One day I hope to be able to say the alphabet in one long burp. Now how's that for a goal?! haha. Okay, so I'm not that bad. It is a good thing though that Les is no wimp when it comes to that stuff. Then again it was she who taught me how to do a H.V.E.M.!
We stuck to the river pathways then made our way up to the Ranchehouse. They are doing construction on the pathways so I convinced Les we should climb the stairs and take the 'high' route. Sometimes I wish I couldn't convince her, as it was doing the stairs where I was reminded I did a 1/2 Ironman a couple of days ago and she was reminded she rode 180 km on Sunday. Ow, ow, ow. Also we had to pass through some tall grass and it was then I started to wonder if we have rattlesnakes in this here Cowboy country??? FASTER, GO FASTER!!! Definately helped me pick my knees up, in addition to my pace! Not to mention I almost ran over Les.
When we got to the top we headed to the trail. It was a wee bit more overgrown now, which was fine for the first bit. Until we got to the section with very, very, high thistles. Ow, ow, ow. Now either I'm really short or those things were darn tall...likely a little bit of both. We made it through the thistles and now it was just the tall grass and other goodies that smacked at our legs, as well as our arms. There were also tree branches we were ducking...I'm sure in Les' attempt to get back at me for the stairs she 'accidently' let go of one of the branches. Hmmm. By the time we got out of all that stuff I had welts on my legs and arms from little cuts and the pollen that I'm allergice too making everything very itchy. No worries though, I could handle it! In all honesty it was fun running through there, much better than the paths or the roads. haha.
The last half was much better and I finally had a good pace. We were both amazed at how strong we felt during the last bit, even with all the little things that were starting to hurt. The best part was climbing this one last hill on the way home. We had to climb that hill when we were in our half marathon clinic in 2005. It was awesome to see how much stronger we were now. We had just run 2:30 hrs and here we were running up this hill better than we did then. Very cool!
The last thing to test my strength was the blister on my pinky toe that I got at Sylvan. It started to sting really badly. Luckily it was only for the last 6 minutes of the run that I had to run with my right foot slightly tipped so I wouldn't land on it. Ow, ow, ow.
All of these little challenges are going to make me tougher, right?!
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