Ocho miles

Writing the word ocho just reminded me of the football player on Dancing with the Stars who changed his name to Ochocinco, so weird.  It makes me laugh.  Is he even hispanic?

According to Wikipedia:

"Ochocinco has been selected to the Pro Bowl six times and named an All-Pro three times. He legally changed his surname from Johnson to Ochocinco prior to the 2008 regular season to reflect the two numbers on his Bengals uniform.[2]. While he references his last name as two words "Ocho Cinco", his legal last name is condensed into one word, as spelled on his name change application.[1]"

Okay the real reason for this blog is to report on the eight mile long run this Saturday.  I finally broke out the water bottle fanny pack cause it was in the low 80's.  I felt like I had at least 5lbs of gear on me. Ipod, Garmin, water bottle, and GU.

Me all geared up. 

I tried out some new things this run.  First, I have never had GU before.  I read some reviews on it and on Hammer Gel and decided to try them both.  I had some vanilla flavored GU about 15 mintues before the run and then Tropical flavored Hammer Gel about 45 minutes into the run.  I was pleasantly surprised with both flavors.  I am really wierd about tastes and textures and was afraid I was going to have to gag them down but they tasted great. 

I had eaten a banana and a cup of cheerios without milk at about 9am and we didn't end up running till around noon so I was really glad I had the gels. 

I am saying "we" because guess who ran 7 miles with me?! Thomas!!! I was so happy! I thought he would just run like 3 with me but he went to 3.25 and then I ran ahead to mile 4 while he walked a bit and then I turned around and caught up with him and we ran back together.  I didn't even have to use my Ipod cause I had my honey to chat with!

It was really fun looking at all the land and houses (we ran out by my parents house which is kind of out in the country).  When we buy a house we want it to be out in the country a bit with some land so we can build on it.  

Another first for me was running with sunglasses.  I always thought they would annoy me but I didn't notice them at all. And it helped so my eyes didn't hurt from squinting.

Another first was not going goal race pace on the long run.  Last half marathon training I would try to go nine minute miles but I have been reading online and all the sources say that you should run your long runs about 1 minute slower than your desired race pace.  Running slower made me not so anxious about the run and made it more enjoyable for me.

This was a great run for training for hills too because there were lots of hills both ways.  The last quarter mile was up hill and we had a minute left to make it on goal pace.  We sprinted to the top of the hill and had five seconds to spare. 

8 miles in 1:19:55

Funniest thing happened at the beginning of the run.  We started on a downhill and we were seriously 20 feet away from the house and a car goes past us so Thomas gets behind me and then I hear "Ah!! I rolled my ankle!" I turn around and he is limping and says "And right in front of that stupid van!" We both were laughing.  He walked it off and we continued on.  I busted out laughing a couple times on the run thinking of it again. And then we were at church and I thought about it again and had to try to hold it in.  Thomas leaned over to ask me what was so funny and I would try to tell him but then start laughing again. How come everything is so much more funny when you are at church?

Very successful run.  I'm converted to energy gels now and wearing sunglasses while running.

Oh ya the only bad things about the run was my shorts were to baggy and I chafed and I got a blister on one of my toes.  But it was worth it.