Snowy Long Run

The expression 'misery loves company' is meant for winter running. As I'm lying in bed on dark, cold mornings, it's a lot harder to talk myself out of getting up when I know I'm accountable to other people.

Jason Lehmkuhle, of Team USA Minnesota, runner-up at 2008 U.S. Half-Marathon Championships

It was snowing when I got up this morning. It wasn't supposed to do that. The past couple of days before it's been sunny and warmer...when I say warmer, I mean in the upper 30's. If I wouldn't have been accountable to Jamie, I think I would have put it off another day.

It seems that my training plan is a bit much. It goes up by two miles every week for my long run. Since I struggled so badly with 17 last week (which I was supposed to do 18) there was no way I was going to do 19 or 20 this weekend. It may mean marathon destruction on May 1st, but it's all trial and error here because I've never done this before...meaning used a training plan or run a marathon. So, we'll see.

For this run, I tried the Sport Beans and Shot Blocs...much better! I think I have found my fuel of choice. My stomach started giving me a little trouble at mile 12 and on and off until I got home (which is way better than it's been), but other than that, I felt pretty good the entire way. There were no tears and no thoughts of quitting. Although it would have been nice if it wasn't snowing so hard, or it wasn't so cold, or the wind wasn't blowing so hard, but overall it was a great run with Jamie. We finished 14.5 miles in 2:35:34.