Prepping for crazy. . .

So we planned to go 25/25. Our first 25 miles was sheer guts for me. Thoughtlessly, I increased my weight training last week but neglected to increase my food intake. None of those 25 mies felt good. After about 7 miles I realized that the run simply wasn't going to get better so I changed my thinking. I decided I was running 5-5 milers. Mentally it helped but physically it was just guts. My brother was fighting something so I was concerned about our second run. I got a text 5 minutes before my alarm was supposed to go off. The night before we had decided to just go 20. My brother was not feeling well. I told him to go back to bed then I decided to I would go back to bed for another hour and put in 12-14 miles after that. My brother told me to text him when I got up. We got up and ended up going just shy of 13 miles. Interestingly, I felt much better this second run than the last second run. The hills hurt but we were able to move. My brother was still fighting whatever so we walked more than usual but we got it done. 

We have decided what we are going to do next week for our 50 miler. Our older kids want to run a midnight 5K so when they are done we are going to drive up to Zion and start. We figure we should be running about 1:30 and be done before it gets too hot, roughly 12 hours later. My brother keeps saying it's good training for a 100 miler. I keep thinking when did I agreed to that. 

Nutrition is going to be interesting. I'm getting tired of chewy nutrition, gels are already out and so are PayDay bars. Stinger waffles are still amazing though. We'll probably carry 25ish miles worth of nutrition and water and plant both about 20ish miles into the run. By the time we need more we'll be into town and food will be available. There's a wood-fired pizza place in Hurricane that makes an amazing margherita pizza and we're hoping he'll be open on our way down. 

I'll fill you in on our run later. Thanks for checking in and come back soon. 

Back-to-back 20 milers

In preparation for our 50 mile run, we decided to run back-to-back runs. Yesterday morning we went 20 miles and today we did another course but also ran 20 miles. Yesterday's course was one we've run several times now. It has some really good hill climbs on it, basically the first 8 miles are off and on hills with more on than off. The second half of Red Hills Parkway was so dark! It was so surreal, almost dreamlike. An animal could have attacked us and no one would have known. I guess I should add that we left about 3:30 am so most of our run was in the dark. We did that so I could get my kids to school. That run was great. We moved along great, walking only to fuel and on the last hill for a short recovery.

Starting today was a little rough. Right from the start we could feel yesterday's run. We decided that we would run the hills as far as we could and then walk it to the top. There were 4 big hills on the run today and 3 little ones. We could feel them! Strangly, the longer we ran the less the hills bothered us. We could still feel them and they still hurt but the longest and hardest hill we ran to the top. We worried afterward that maybe we might have burned ourselves out (that hill came at mile 12) but we actually handled it well. I could feel the run today in my hips more than normal but overall, it was a good run. I am famished and can't seem to stay full long but that's okay.

Next week we haven't decided if we are running 25/20 or 25/25. My brother has to work when we were supposed to run so we haven't quite figured out what we'll do. I am tired of sports nutrition and I'm trying to find something else to eat. I want to take a burrito but I'm not convinced it would stay good while we're out running. A peanut butter sandwich would be great too but it would be awfully bulky. Someday I'm going to invent a new product. Someday.

Thanks for checking in with me and come back soon. :)