20

It was SUCH a beautiful weekend.
Like I could not have asked for more perfect spring weather.  Last week I ran in fleece lined tights, gloves, a fleece headband, long sleeve shirt and jacket...through snow!  This week I was in a tank and skirt.  Heaven.  I love spring.

The first 20 miler for this marathon is in the books.  It was not perfect, but it was good.  Very good.
And it was mostly due to my amazing husband.

Aaron worked overnight Friday night again.  It's been a long week for the poor guy; 80hrs of work long.  My plan was for him to get home Saturday morning and go right to sleep, while I then took Taylor to BYU for a Merit Badge PowWow, come home to run some errands, get Lincoln to a birthday party and then head back to BYU to pick up Taylor and his friends.  Then I would somehow make time to run in the afternoon.

Aaron came home and sent me running.
How could I possibly have a more wonderful husband?

He headed down to BYU with Taylor and slept in the car.  I guess the one upside to that is that it is considerably more quiet to sleep in the car than it is to try and do so at home during the day.

Me heading out right then did mean I was on a tiny bit of a time crunch because I still needed to get Lincoln to his birthday party, but it was so nice to be able to head out right then instead of waiting till late in the afternoon.

My run ended up broken up a tad.  I did a little calculating and realized that I had just about 2 and a half hours to get miles in before I had to be home.  The training plan I am using has me running about half of my long run distance on Friday at marathon pace, so my legs are just a little worn out for long runs on Saturday. This is a good thing because it helps me keep those long runs nice and slow.  Not that I'm fast anyway, but if you've done this you know the drill.  This week thought I was hoping my legs would be kind to me after 9 on Friday and let me pick up the pace just a tad for Saturday to accommodate the schedule.  Even with the hills my legs cooperated.  Yay!

As I knocked out 17 before I had to be back, I fielded 5 phone calls from home, and had a ten minute chat with my mom while she was shopping.  I had some miles in that completely zen zone where all is right in the world and you can run forever.  I had a side stitch for over 4 miles.  I solved a few major problems, had some lightbulb moments and made plans for the rest of the day.  As is typical for me, at the end of the run I forgot the solutions, my lightbulbs burned out, and my well laid plans were totally gone.
But I was super impressed with myself that in the last mile of my run I had enough forethought to call home, have one of the kids get my purse, my water bottle, a tube of Nuun (lemonade is my new love.  If you haven't tried it you must), and Lincoln completely ready to go with gift wrapped so we could just hop in the car and head out.

I got him to his party only a couple of minutes late.  I was disgusting and sweaty and smelly, but oh well.  Then I drove back home to finish my run.  After going directly from running to driving and spending over 30 minutes in the car, my legs mocked me when I prodded them to return to running.
So I enlisted some help.

Alaina and Jacob came along with me to finish 3 more miles.
It was good for them.  It was great for me.  I love running with my kids, and it was just what I needed to get the legs going again.

Though the majority of the run had been long over, I decided to hit the ice bath anyway.
First ice bath of the season.  It was entirely too enjoyable.
Please note my super sexy running sock tan line.

Good stuff.
Why do my big toe knuckles look so dark?
Yes more ice went in, but I was afraid of dropping my phone in the bath as I zoned out with more ice.

This week is a drop back to a long run of only 12-13.  I love being able to say "only 12-13".
I love that this morning's 5 miler felt perfectly perfect and my legs (and everything else) feels great.  I loved that I took a different route today. I love that it rained overnight so everything smelled so wonderful.  I love that I had moments of complete clarity in my run today-those moments often get muddled in the every day crazy of my life.
I am so grateful that my body is responding so nicely this training cycle and that I'm not having the issues I ran into last time around.  47 days to marathon!