12 Miles

One week until the Provo River Half Marathon and instead of tapering like any runner would do, I decided to run 12 miles. I had the same starting point as last week's long run, only I took a shorter route home and started at 10:30 a.m. instead of 6:30 a.m.

I really thought I was crazy to do this since I didn't have lunch yesterday and my dinner was excellent Japanese food at Tepanyaki; not my traditional long-run meal. Not to mention I was going to run in the heat. All this spelled disaster and I thought I would be calling my wife to pick me up at mile five.

However, I think that nerves played in my favor; I started with a Gatorade in hand so I had some quick carbos and I was never without fluids to either drink or dump on me. At almost every convenience store I filled the Gatorade bottle with ice and water and with 4.5 miles to I bought another Gatorade to make sure I had enough electrolytes. I'm guess half of my water was dumped on my body, which proved to be a good idea.

I actually felt better after this run than I did my 13.5-miler last week -- I felt like I was getting stronger near the end. That's really encouraging. Some might ask why I ran a 12-miler the week before a race. The answer is that I've got bigger fish to fry: the St. George Marathon in October. I want to make sure I'm ready and can hit my long runs unlike when I was training for Ogden.

Here are stats for today's run:

Mileage - 12
Minutes - 115 minutes
Comfort - 9

This week's stats:
Mileage - 16
Minutes - 154 minutes
Comfort - 8.5