The 18 miles...

The alarm is going off.  It's 4:00 a.m.  Yes I'm one of those crazy people who gets up early and the fact that I'm going to run 18 miles makes me even crazier...I ate some breakfast and got all my stuff together.  Then drove to my angel-sister-in-law Alyssa's house to run with her.  She is amazing!  We started off pretty good until the South Weber wind started blowing.  How I hate running against the wind!!!  I don't know what was up with me, but I was being so slow!  We got through South Weber and made our way up a hill.  My marvelous mother drove by at that point and shouted, "You go girls!"  That gave me even more motivation, but alas I'm not that great of a runner and to me the hill was quite steep....I had to walk most of it.  Bless Alyssa's heart she stayed with me the whole way up!  I'm so lucky to have her in our family.  My brother made a good choice when he decided to start chasing her. :0)  Mom met us at the top of the hill for some more encouragement and on we went.  Alyssa pulled away and I was better able to find my groove.  I'm glad she was with me for the hill though because I'm not sure I would have made it without her! 

By mile nine I was running an average 13.5 minute mile.  It kind of went downhill from there (lol).  By the time I got back to South Weber Drive I was beyond done,  but Alyssa and my Mom met me and helped me make it through the last couple miles.  Then I finished!  in 4 hours and 20 minutes which is an average 14:26 mile.  The last mile took me around 20-25 minutes, so it threw off my average :-(.  But I still did better than I thought I would!

Only a short few weeks before the marathon...