Today's scheduled run was 20 miles and I decided to give the East Lake Sammamish Trail a try since it was about 10 miles long. I started out on tired legs from yesterday (by design...) and was comforted by feeling a slight uphill in the beginning and looked forward to that downhill at the end of the run. It took me a bit of time to start to feel a rhythm but I felt good to the turn-around point in Issaquah. Then things started to heat up a bit (it was about 11:30 by then) and it started to get harder. My HR got higher but my pace never seemed to :( The last three miles took some serious self-talk and I was getting worried because I had almost finished my bottle of water and Gatorade. It did not help that the last three miles were NOT downhill, but mysteriously as uphill as they were on the way out.

It helped that I caught sight of someone ahead of me in a yellow shirt and I focused on chasing that person (not hard, of course) to the end. I finally caught and passed her just as I turned off the trail to get to the park but it did help pull me in. I was pretty out of it at the end and limped back to the car. Fortunately, I got to use the campus showers and got a nice cold chocolate milk and diet Pepsi in my stomach as well as first aid ointment for the newest wound my running bra created :(

We then headed to the company picnic and I think I did a pretty darn good job eating twice my weight in free food. :) It's been a great weekend and Wally and I look forward to completely vegging out tonight!

20 Mile Run @ 03:18:00