I’ve been scared of this weekend ever since I added “Long 20″ to my training calendar this summer.  The idea of running 20 miles seemed beyond crazy and completely outside of my comfort zone.  I started stressing as it got closer because it looked like I was going to have to do it on my own too, and we all know how that goes.  Blah!

I posted on my personal facebook page kind of joking asking who wanted to run it with me.  I figured if nothing else, I may be able to get a few of my runner buddies to run a few of the miles with me and if I planned it well, I’d only have to cover a handful of the miles completely solo.  I got lucky and one of my friends (the one whose group I’ve been running with) needed to run 14 miles this weekend and was looking for company too!  SCORE!

She was planning to run a bit faster than I was, but agreed to slow down just a bit so we decided to meet at Starbucks at 6AM on Saturday and I was actually kind of excited.  Honestly, I just really wanted to be able to post a picture of my Garmin showing I ran 20 miles with a bit “I DID IT!!”  Yeah, I’m a nerd like that.

Since I had to run an extra 6 without my friend, I decided I’d get up at 4:30AM so I could get a few of them in before I met up with her.  I woke up and heard water running.. I figured there was a leak or something.  It never crossed my mind that it may be raining.  I rolled over, grabbed my phone to check twitter, instagram, facebook, and the weather.. I was not so pleasantly surprised when I saw that we were in the middle of a pretty heavy downpour and it wasn’t letting up anytime soon.

I considered rolling over and going back to sleep, but I knew my friend would be there waiting for me so I got up, got dressed, and headed downstairs for breakfast and coffee.  I texted her to make sure we were still on and checked the weather again.  The storms were supposed to clear out by 7AM so we figured if it was bad, we could just hang out at Starbucks ’til they cleared.

Note to self – weathermen don’t know it all.  When they say the storms will clear out by 7AM, the storms probably won’t clear out by 7AM.

It poured on me the entire way to Starbucks.  Not a nice, refreshing rain.. a down pour.  We figured we’d be waiting around for a long while if we tried to wait out the storms, so in true BAMR fashion, we headed out for our long run in the rain.  Thankfully my friend knew the area well because thanks to the cloud cover, we were running in the dark for much longer than normal.  Running in the dark also meant that we couldn’t see the puddles ahead of us until after we ran through them.  Yeah, 20-miles in soggy clothes and soggy shoes.. are we having fun yet?

The run itself was actually really fun.  We had a lot to catch up on and eventually we were so soggy and waterlogged that the rain really didn’t bother us anymore and was kind of funny.  We did learn that when your running clothes are soaking wet, it’s better not to try to pull them up and mess with them, because if you do, then you’ll spend the rest of your run trying to hold them up.  And also, we should get cross training points since we basically swam part of the way and were pretty much running with an extra 10 pounds on us from our wet clothes and shoes.

We made our way back to Starbucks and I was on my own for the last six miles.  I changed into dry socks since the rain had let up some and stretched out for a bit, then took off again.  I’m so glad that I had body glide with me or I would have been beyond miserable.  My wet shoes and wet foot plus dry sock was a chafing nightmare.  I stopped after about half a mile to coat my foot in body glide, the finished up the rest of my run.

Then, I got to post this lovely photo, because we all know it didn’t happen if you don’t post a picture of your Garmin, right?

Meeting at Starbucks was a really great idea (for me, maybe not for the other Starbucks customers) because when I finished running, I was freezing and wet and hot coffee sounded amazing.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have a drive-thru so I went in to get my drink (venti non-fat no whip salted caramel mocha-YUM!) and had to stand in line.  I was so wet that there was a puddle under where I was standing.  Oops!

I was surprised at how great I felt afterward.  Nothing hurt, I wasn’t really sore, and I really felt like I could keep going for a while longer.  My pace was pretty decent too.  I think what really helped with that was that we were running intervals.  My friend typically sticks to 4:1 (4 minute run, 1 minute walk) intervals and picks the pace up quite a bit when she’s running.  I’ve done the intervals with her for my last few long runs and I’m always surprised at how little I hurt when we’re done.  I’m trying to decide if I should plan to do intervals at Space Coast — I’m thinking maybe 5:1 or 6:1.  Typically I walk through the water stops at races, so that’s kind of an interval, just a much longer one.  I need to think about how I want to do this.

So now, it’s taper time.  I’m really looking forward to 12 miles being my long run for the next few weekends — crazy that 12 miles isn’t really a long run for me now.  Yikes.

I’d planned to spend the rest of the day relaxing at home with my babies.  It’s Florida/Georgia weekend in Jax (huge football weekend, for the non-fans) and I wanted to watch the game and spend a lot of time in my compression capri’s with these two snuggle bugs..  (please pardon the lack of makeup!)

Sadly though, since work is so busy right now, this is how I spent the rest of my day.. at Panera in a not-so-comfy chair staring at the lovely website that we’re currently in the process of taking over (it’s a government site and I can promise you, it will be a million times better than the crazy Obamacare one!) and documenting every error message I could possibly come up with, then matching it up to a spreadsheet they sent us.  It was quite possibly the most boring way ever to spend a Saturday afternoon.

I called it a day around 8PM and headed home to watch the Florida State/Miami game (GO NOLES!!) and fell asleep a little after half time.  Mackenzie usually wakes up at some point during the night and Adam gets her and puts her in bed with us.  I woke up to her throwing up in our bed around 1AM.  I grabbed her and ran to the bathroom with her while Adam got the bed cleaned up.  I spent the rest of the night alternating between rocking her in the chair in her room and attempting to sleep on the floor next to her bed so I could be close if she got sick again.

Thankfully the vomiting didn’t last, but the poor little thing was miserable all day Sunday.  Our usually crazy-happy little girl spent the day either cuddling on the couch with one of us or sleeping and fighting a fever.  There’s nothing worse than having a sick little one when there’s really not much that you can do for them.  She perked up that evening and seemed to feel better.  By bedtime, she was back to normal and thankfully was kind and didn’t share her sick germs with the rest of us!

Have you ever alternated between straight runs and interval running?  Which works best for you?  How do you decide which to do?

Is this evil stomach bug going around near you too?  I think half of Braden’s school has been out with it!