Saturday: 13.1 miles

I decided while I was running that I would do a half marathon instead of my 12 scheduled miles. Mostly because I had done a 4 mile run instead of a 5 the day before. I started out at a pretty fast pace and just decided to go with it. It lasted about 2 miles and then I slowed down to about a 9:45 second pace. I decided to keep it there because that's the pace I would like to run the marathon at. I got myself on a new trail by accident, the sidewalk took an unexpected turn under a bridge, and I decided to go with it. I was pretty sure it would dump me out onto the Lake Sammamish trail. It did. About .25 miles from that was another new trail that I was planning on trying out. It was the Issaquah-Preston trail. It was super great at first. I was loving it. The weather was beautiful too! Then it started climbing, up, up, up. I kept pushing along and around every turn there was more hill to be conquered. I thought maybe I was half way to Mt. Rainier at this point! Then the paved trail turned into a gravel little trail and I was in the wilderness! NOT my scene. I'm a big scaredy cat and was imaging mountain lions ready to pounce on me. So I turned around and went back to the Lake Sammamish trail. Turns out I ran up for .9 of a mile! That seems big to me. The rest of the run was pretty uneventful. I tried to keep my pace under 10 minutes. I had to push myself pretty good to do that. Also I had to use hammer gels as apposed to my regular power gels. NEVER again. They are just too thick and just didn't quite give me the boost I was looking for. The plain flavor was the nastiest thing EVER! The apple cinnamon actually wasn't that bad. I finished my own personal 1/2 marathon in 2 hours 7 minutes and some change. My pace was 9 min. 44 sec. average. I was a tiny bit discouraged because that is the pace I want to sustain for the full marathon and I was spent by the end of my run. However, I am still getting over a cold and feel like my lungs aren't quite back to normal yet. Also, my back was giving me more grief than normal and still is. I have been icing and taking anti-inflammatories hoping to keep it under control.......... especially for my 20 mile run this weekend! Yikes!