Another New Milestone...18

It's days like today that reaffirm my decision to train with a group. I guess I know myself well in that I wouldn't be able to do this without others. Likewise, it was a blessing in disguise that the half marathon trainings were all on Saturdays which forced me to switch to the full. It has proven (knock on wood) to be a positive switch.

The long runs will be earlier on Sundays now...meeting at 7am, yowzers! I went to bed early and had my alarm set for 5:30. Since most of my stuff was set out the night before, I didn't have a lot to do in the morning before meeting a few members of the group to carpool to the Mahomet Lake of the Woods location. We left Donna's house (pace leader) around 6:30 and made it with plenty of time.

Can you see how excited I am? I hope I don't look this bad every day!

It was cold. Very cold. Much colder than I thought it would be. We all stood between cars to block the wind until everyone arrived and the conversation stuck to how ridiculously cold it was. I imagine Mike (pace leader) was actually the coldest since he recently shaved off his massive beard and the rest of the hair on his head.

We headed out with the usual from our group to start the first of 3 out and backs on the bike trail. This was only the second time I have been to the Lake of the Woods, so everything was relatively new for me. A few of us decided that ignorance is bliss when running often. Aside from it being colder than what we have been accustomed to lately, the course was also significantly hillier than what I am used to.

Del, a Mahomet resident, was the first to point out all the hills and prepped us for each approaching hill. It became quite the joke, but at least it gave us something to talk about and even kept our minds off of all of the hills. We didn't realize that ice skating was part of our training since parts of the trail were icy, but we all managed to stay on our feet.

The group seems to be getting a little closer as evidenced by our conversation. We seem to talk not only about upcoming races and our current pace, but also about our families and personal lives. We have a lot to share (thankfully since we're out there for so long) since our ages cover multiple decades, as someone pointed out during a previous run.

There was little debate today about stopping at the water stops every 3 miles. We all tried to take it a little easier since this is the first of our longer runs. I appreciated knowing that there was a heated bathroom on the trail, but we all only stopped once.

Some highlights from the 18 miles include Del making fun of Donna and another runner who smile a lot while they run, us making fun of Del's hill analysis, the start of our "Top 10 things a pace leader should do" including block the wind, cheer the runners on, and present the group with mathematical equations or other solutions to pace related questions, Del saving Donna from falling on the ice, our mad sprint away from the aide station to make sure the "fast group" didn't lap us, and of course, Dan's homemade brownies waiting for us at the end. Oh Dan, you are my kind of man.

I felt pretty good throughout the run. My legs were a bit sore the last 5 miles or so, but I'm blaming that on the hills. All in all, I'd call it a good run. I'm feeling pretty confident right now despite the fact that I refuse to move from the couch.

Did I mention it was cold? My long, hot shower did not remotely warm me up. I resorted to multiple layers, a large blanket, and kisses to little M&M.