6 miles

So this morning I got up, dropped off the kids at school/YMCA camp, and picked up my running buddy Wendy. Her and I run the same pace, so it's great to run together. We decided to do our 6 miles at the American Tobacco Trail which is a trail that runs for 22 miles from our county into the neighboring county. It is nice and wide and accommodates both runners and bikers as well as horses.

We when got out of the van, it was a cool 64 degrees out. I kept a long sleeved shirt on, and had my brand new water bottle thingy my good friend got me as an early birthday present. It is just like this one:

It was really nice. I can't carry a water bottle in my hand as I run because I do this crazy grip thing that makes my hand hurt. This straps onto my hand and I barely knew it was there.

The run was great, as was the trail. All the miles and half miles are marked (although we never saw the 2.5 mile marker). The first half mile came at us so fast, we were shocked. The first three miles actually went pretty fast. We turned around to run back at the end of mile three, and my stomach growled. I think it's time to invest in those GU energy things. At around mile 4, my knees started to hurt, but not bad enough to warrant walking. Just annoying.

We kept our pace pretty much the same for the entire 6 miles. We slowed down three times - once for me to take my long sleeved shirt off, once when we did the turn to turn and get water, and once for me to check my phone. So really, we probably kept closer to a 10 minute mile for some of the miles.

And yes, I stopped at Starbucks on the way home and got some coffee and some coffee cake before my stomach started to eat itself.

I was nervous to run 6 miles - a distance I had never done before. Now I get to get nervous about 7 miles for next weekend. And that 6 miles means I have run 12 miles this week. Of course, putting in perspective and realizing the run I did today wasn't even half the distance of a half marathon scares the shit out of me, but maybe by the end of this training, it won't be so scary.