Bringing Sexy Back for 20 Miles

Hey guys!!! I hope you all had great weekends! I don't think I've ready any blogs this week but hopefully I can catch up with you guys soon! Work has been crazy, this is our super busy season, so I've been working a lot more overtime than usual this week which totally sucks. It horribly cuts into the limited amount of free time we have for running, working on the house and our regular chores. Ugh. And of course that means no time for keeping up with you guys!!

So, rewind back to last weekend. We had a really nice round of rain come through in the middle of last week and leave us with some great fall weather. Instead of our boring lunch-time runs on the treadmill at the gym we took it outdoors at lunch and were going to run a regular 4-mile routine we had in our old neighborhood (we only work 2 miles away from where we used to live). Well...the sidewalks there are GONE. We don't know why, it looks like they are going to widen the road. I doubt anyone out there will even notice they lost their sidewalks, people in our old suburban neighborhood seemed to be allergic to exercise, a complete opposite to our new neighborhood! So, we pieced together a two miles route and ran it twice. We ran pretty easily, talking about our crappy days and were pretty shocked this easy pace ended up being around 8:45 avg. I love how much easier it is to run when it cools down!!

Of course we were hoping this would continue into our long run for Saturday. Instead of going to the hilly park and practicing the first 20 miles of our November marathon we decided to do 20 flat miles. Brent's longest run ever was 19 miles last winter, so we really thought it would be best to tackle the 1st 20 on the flats. I have an extra week in September that I wasn't sure what to do with anyway, so it didn't throw us off our grand plan. We got up early, were pleased that the weather guy said it wouldn't be sunny until noon, ate some bagels and drove over to Shelby Park. At first I even had chill bumps!! Of course that only lasted for about 3 miles and then the sun was in full force. And then....motivation.....in the form of JT. Justin Timerblake that is. Sexy Back came on my nano and I knew I couldn't stop. I had to bring Sexy Back. For 20 miles. So we kept on plodding on and on, eating sports beans at the right time, waving at the fellow runners, just running comfortably. We finished up the 7.5 mile greenway loop, then running through the golf course area and around the lake before stopping to exchange our bottles for new frozen ones. We headed back to do the 7.5 mile course one more time and not long after we started we split up to run our own paces. I just wanted to be finished as soon as possible because it was stupid hot. I cursed the weather guy a lot, and I promise I will pull him behind me for 20 miles in the sun, in the 80's so that maybe, JUST MAYBE, next time he won't say it will be in the low 70's with clouds. When we started - it was 65 degrees. When we finished - 82 degrees. That's just an incredible swing. I finished in roughly the same time as last week, this week my average was 9:30 per mile. My fastest miles were my final ones, Mile 20 was at an 8:50 pace! 18 & 19 were around 9:11, and the rest were all pretty consistent so I won't bore you with them. I felt stronger on this 20 miler than last week, just because I knew I could do it. This one was much tougher though because of the total sun exposure for such a long period of time. I hung around and stretched it all out and waited for Brent to finish. I gave him lots of cheers and two cyclists who had passed us about a million times told us "Good Job" as we were walking away. Athletes are the best.

So....how did we celebrate?? By getting me a new ride!!! The Expedition was just too damn big. It's just impossible to park, impossible to maneuver around the city and especially downtown, and just plain TOO BIG. So, I am now the proud owner of a bright red used Pontiac Vibe!! It's so cute and MANAGEABLE! It's great fun. We love it!!! We don't have all the "fancy" heated seats, adjustable pedals and memory seats, but we can park it!! And it gets over 30 miles per gallon, basically 3x the gas mileage of the Expedition.

I guess that's all the news around here. I ran on the treadmill tonight since it was pretty much dark when we got home. I watched Dancing with the Stars which is pretty tough to watch while on the dread! Shows like that make me sing and dance all around the house. (I've already been told once tonight by Brent to calm down.) You wanna know who is NOT bringing sexy back to Nashville??? Country singer Sara Evans. GEEZ! Loosen up lady!!! I swear it looked like she was auditioning for the Mickey Mouse club or something. Get dirty girl!!

Have a great rest of the week everyone!