Week 5: 21 Mile Run/Celebration

I didn't mean to run 21 miles on Saturday morning. It certainly wasn' the plan. I was hoping to do 12-15 tops. Damn, the peer pressure. I met the Gazelles at 5:30am on Saturday morning and headed off with Thon and Amy. He sent the Chicago people off on a faster, flatter 22-miler. Thon, Amy and I decided to run the lonelier, hillier and what will be the new Austin Marathon course for 2007 (holy bejesus it's a toughy. Scenic, but hard). So, it's just a few miles into the run and the three of us are chatting about how unsafe it is for a woman to run in the dark by herself...how we should not let our guard down no matter how safe we feel. Amy relayed a story about a couple of other girlfriends of hers who were just chased last week. We hit the point in the run where Amy and Thon were going to continue and I was going to go a different way. Well, shit, after that conversation, I wasn't going anywhere! It was 21 miles or bust. Luckily, I was somewhat prepared with 2 clif shots and we weren't running that fast. We proceeded on and had a really pleasant run, the three of us. We finally converged with the Chicago peeps at about Mile 17 as we headed towards campus. Of course, the town was all fired up for the Ohio State vs. Texas game. Just running through campus and seeing the tailgates beginning at 8am was enough to get the adrenaline pumping with just a few miles to go. I asked my partners to indulge me for a second as I ran by a couple of Buckeye fans and shouted the familiar "O-H" to which they responded with their hangover tones "I-O."

We hit Congress Avenue and saw that there was a small 5k taking place. Seriously, as soon as we got to the starting pack, the airhorn sounded, the race began and we could hear "Chariots of Fire" blaring on the speakers. We jumped in with the pack and started running alongside of the 5kers. It was hilarious and pretty surreal at the same time! What made it surreal was that we were 18 miles in to our run and still passing most of the 5kers.

Finally, we hit the trail, got some much need hydration and headed towards Barton Springs. Unfortuantely, I was negligent in my stretching and left pretty much right away. Why?? I had to get ready for the big football game!