A Hot, Hilly Sweat Session

Yesterday morning I woke up from my first anxiety dream about marathon morning.  I think it is slowly sinking in that it is barely a month away and the time is flying by!  In my dream I was wandering around trying to get ready for the race which was starting in 45 minutes.  I was wearing the wrong socks and I couldn't find my shoes at all.  I went into a room and realized my race bib was still sitting there on the table and...I wasn't wearing pants!  There were grey sweat pants on a chair so I put them on really quick and was still looking for my shoes while looking at the clock- only 20 minutes until the race started!  Thankfully I woke up at that point and ended that nightmare!  Next time I will try to have the "perfect" marathon morning dream.

Amazingly enough we were also lucky to have a beautiful sunny day yesterday!  I had made plans to run 9 miles with my friend Alyssa (she is running the half marathon at NODM) in the afternoon and I was looking forward to working on my tan!  I decided to head out to Chambers Bay Golf Course for a change in scenery and I thought it would be a little less busy than the Tacoma waterfront.  I knew we would be facing some serious hills, but I forgot how intense they really are!

I teased Alyssa that we were going to start out by running straight up the enormous hill we drove down and she just looked at me like I was nuts.  So we headed off in the opposite direction- although I knew what awaited down the path a little ways.  That same hill had to be climbed, just in more of a switch back kind of format!  From mile 1.5-2.5 we gained 250 feet of altitude!  Wow oh wow, that was crazy hard!  First of all, I wasn't even completely warmed up at that point, and secondly- what is it with my breathing when it is warm outside???  I never feel like I am panting and out of breath during a run unless I am really pushing my pace, but get the temperature up around 60 or so and I totally lose it!  So annoying.  Anyways, after we reached the top of the crazy hill it took about another mile before I felt fully recovered enough to even hold a conversation. 

The hill we didn't run up! 

We decided to run straight down Chambers Way until the sidewalk ended, then turn around and retrace our path back to the beginning.  We got back to the main area around mile 5.8 or so and Alyssa asked how much farther?  I said "oh, just 5K left!" we are getting close!  So we just lapped around the bottom area the last few miles- I couldn't convince her to head back towards the hills haha (not that I wanted to either!).  I am not sure if it was the heat or the hills or a combination of the two but for the life of me I could not get my legs to move faster than they were!  Oh well, 9 miles is 9 miles and it was a fun run with a friend!  I also refilled my water bottle THREE times which is crazy!  Our time was 1:29 for a hot and sweaty pace of 9:54.

We survived our hot, hilly 9 miles!!!

I am also trying to decide what to do for my long run on Saturday.  I am scheduled to do 14 miles, but I have been toying with the idea of doing 16 since I missed my 16 miler a few weeks back.  What do you think???  Maybe I should compromise and do 15?  Then next weekend on May 14th is my big 20 miler before I start my tapering.  I don't want to risk injury but I do feel like getting one more run in of a decent distance might benefit me.  Any advice out there???