First Long Run After Illness

I spent most of last week in Oklahoma City at the National Christian Homeschool Basketball Tournament, and while I was there I did find time to run, my longest being 14 miles, and with a total of over 27 miles, so it wasn't a bad week running. Also, my daughter's team did pretty well in the tournament they finished third in their bracket, losing to the team that ended up first.

I couldn't get my long run in on Saturday because the day was just too full. Luckily the RunnersWorld group did their long run on Sunday. So, I got up this morning, with only four hours of sleep and ran 20 miles. I started out with a pretty good sized group (including Brian, Johnny, Ken, Patty, Kathy F., and Michelle, but the only one with me the whole way was Brian. We started at 31st & Riverside and ran on the Midland Valley Trail and some brand new trails that led up to 6th Street. The out and back was 6 miles, done at a 10 minute pace. I enjoyed running on the new trail, which was relatively hilly compared to the River Parks trails. Then we ran north on the River Parks trail to 21st and then back south to 71st at slightly slower than 10 minute pace, leaving most of the group at 56th because they were only running 15. From that point we picked up the pace a little, going a little under 10 minute pace. Julie, the woman winner of the Snake Run was with us at that point and was going to Turkey Mountain, so we stuck with her and did the one mile loop up there then headed back to Riverside. Brian and I decided to try to keep a 9 minute pace once we got back to Riverside, but we got carried away and started running an 8 minute pace. We did that for a mile, then had a short walking break in the next mile while Brian answered his cell phone, which slowed us to almost 5 minutes for that half mile (Kathy H. was calling Brian to ask us to breakfast at BBD along with the 15 milers.) . We then ran an 8 minute mile followed by a 3:45 half mile. We ran the last mile slowly as a cool down. I thought it was a really good run. I felt good the whole way, and afterwards the only real tiredness I had was due more to lack of sleep than to running. The breakfast at BBD was very good, a perfect ending for a thoroughly enjoyable morning.