Exciting Eleven!

So September was a good month for running for me! I had 72.4 miles of running! The most I've ever run in one month by at least 15 miles. Unfortunately biking and especially swimming were very poor this month. In fact I did not swim at all. This is going to have to change.

So running this week first off I had a really great tempo run on Wednesday. I actually ran for the very first time 4 miles straight without stopping to walk. It felt fantastic! I forgot to set my times into my Garmin and didn't want to keep looking at it so I just tried to push myself to keep a pretty good pace. I was suppose to run at 12:46 pace and managed to do pretty good with a 12:08 11:44 11:32 and 12:18. Funny just now as I was looking at my schedule I realized I was suppose to do speed work and not a tempo run... :) oh well I guess this week I will try some speed work. Anyway I was thrilled to have run 4 miles straight.

Cut to my long run today. Kathleen from Dare to Dream and I met up at the Highline Canal to do our run together. We had decided that we would do as much as we could together both worried about holding the other up. It was a beautiful morning around 60ish degrees and the Highline Canal turned out to be a fantastic place to run. Love the dirt path and all the shade from the trees. We decided we would just head out and try to keep an easyish pace and just keep going. At mile 2 Aimee from I Tri To Be Me ran up behind us. She was doing her 20 mile run in preparation for the Denver Rock 'n' Roll Marathon and was on around mile 13 she chatted with us for a little before she headed off to finish up her last 7. No surprise while it is probably Aimee's slowest mile of her run it was our fastest at 11:36. So on Kathleen and I ran chatting and enjoying the morning with a bathroom stop in the 5th mile. We ran to 5 and 1/2 and turned around and headed back as we hit mile 6 Kathleen says this the farthest you've ever run without walking huh? I said yep all the while really amazed that I'm still running with no walk breaks and all in all feel really good. At the end of mile 7 Kathleen says she is going to do some walking but tells me to go on. I debated about it, really enjoying the company and not wanting to go on by myself, but also wanting to know just how much longer I could run without stopping...could I really do 11 miles with no walk breaks? So on I ran. It was indeed lonely those last miles. I had no idea until recently how really nice it is to run with people. Makes the time go so much faster. So mile 8 was ok getting a little rougher mile 9 and 10 I was really ready to be done and mile by mile eleven (still running with no walk breaks here!) I feel like I'm barley lifting my feet and everything is starting to hurt. I just want to be done. You better believe as soon as my Garmin registered 11 I hit the button and started to walk! I ran all eleven miles! I seriously never, never, ever thought that I would be able to do that! I thought that I would always be a run/walker and now I see that it really is just mind over matter. And really once you get passed the first couple miles it's not that hard. It helped tremendously that the weather was so great, the path so flat, and the company so good! Thanks Kathleen for helping me achieve something I never thought I would!