Week # 16

Note: Sorry this post is so late. It’s been a busy week for me, which I will tell you all about in my next post.

I started my week off pretty sore from my 20 mile long run on Sunday. My friend Julie is also training for the go! St. Louis race in April, but she’ll be running the Half Marathon. She mentioned the previous week that she wanted some extra motivation for her long runs and help with pacing, so we decided to run together on Sunday. Coming off a 20 miler, I didn’t know if I’d be up for doing the whole 8 miles she had to do, but I thought I could see how I felt after a few miles. If I felt good, I’d stretch one loop around the park into 8 miles. If I didn’t feel good, it would be a direct route closer to 5.5, perhaps with a lot of walking. This is a picture of me and Julie from my birthday party.

Turns out it felt pretty good! We kept a pretty slow pace to avoid slipping and sliding around on the ice. The word of the day was "SLUSH" – it was everywhere. We finished around 1:31 – slow and steady. It was great running with a friend, especially after my lonely 20 the day before (see last week’s post for that story).

Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday were all spent on the treadmill. Work had been keeping me late and I just couldn’t get outside. Not that I wanted to with the nasty cold weather we had. Friday I had planned on running after work, before my dinner date with Ryan, but he was adamant about me getting up early to run before work. I figured I’d have plenty of time to run before dinner, but he insisted…little did I know what he was planning for me after work!! :)

If you read the post below, you know that Friday night was spent celebrating! We had so much fun and so much champagne. Luckily it was a step back week, where I was only supposed to run 10 miles. I knew I couldn’t do the run in the morning b/c I had to go to a bridal shower for our friend Paige, so I made plans to run that afternoon with Julie again.

The weather had taken a fantastic turn and it was 70 degrees and sunny for our run. She met me at my house and we took off for Grant’s Trail. I love Grant’s Trail because it’s incredibly flat, which makes for easy miles. A few miles in, you also pass Grant’s Farm, established by Ulysses S. Grant and is a 281-acre ancestral home of the Busch family. The Farm is home to more than 1,000 animals representing more than 100 different species from six continents and includes the famous Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales. I love running by the Clydesdales because they’re very curious and always come up to the fence to be touched. Julie and I even got to see two baby Clydesdales. We made it back to the house with a time of 1:39.

Julie - it's so much fun running with you, we're going to have to keep this up!

Weekly recap:
Sunday: 8.0 miles
Tuesday: 6.0
Wednesday: 8.0
Friday: 4.25
Saturday: 9.0

Total: 35.3 miles