18 miles!

Our longest training run to date couldn’t have had more beautiful weather, though it was touch and go all week whether we’d be frolicking like bunnies in a cool, refreshing stream this morning or stumbling like overheated, drunken cows on our way to slaughter. (My blog, my tortured metaphors. If you don’t think bunnies can frolic in a stream, that’s your problem.) Of course, by about mile 16 the weather was totally trumped by the HOLY SHIT THIS HURTS factor, so we were all actually kind of looking forward to that slaughter. Unfortunately, it never came.

Here we are (OK, here I am) before the run, looking as though I’m contemplating the Zen beauty of what I’m about to experience. But don’t be fooled; this picture was taken at 5:45 am and I’m really just thinking about the perfectly good pillow on the perfectly good bed I left half an hour earlier for what is in some circles a perfectly ridiculous reason:


Our first walk break. Still not very engaged:


Fearless Leader Matthew seems to take a lot of pictures of us during our walk breaks. In reality, he takes a lot of pictures of us period. It’s just that the walk-break pictures tend to be more flattering cleaner. Here we are at another early walk break, looking every bit as though we could burst into song at any minute and make those Sharks very sorry they invaded our turf:


For having just run 12 miles, I’m looking awfully thick around the middle. Do notice my running shorts’ built-in butt pockets for running gel and energy bars, though. It’s a very cool feature. Plus they give me the illusion of having a butt:


Our official we-just-ran-18-miles-and-it-hurts-like-hell faces:


Our official we-just-ran-18-miles-and-now-we-get-to-eat-the-equivalent-of-a-small-child faces: