91- I kinda learned....sorta....

Well, after last week's hotter-than-hell 16 miler that I started at 10:30am, I proclaimed that I would never let my need for sleep get in the way of me running appropriately early enough to beat the heat.  That is really easy to say when you don't remember how tired pre 4am wakeups for days in a row make you!  Today, I just kept rolling over in bed until *gasp* 8:30am.  This + need to eat pre-run made my departure on my 20 miler about 10am.  Which was slightly better than last week, however it was counteracted by the fact that I was running 4 additional miles more and therefore would end at basically the same time...alas.

The good news is, my mom volunteered to run with me for the first 8.5 miles around the lake next door to ours.  This was amazing because a) I love running with my mom b) I love running with other people in general and c) that is further than my mom usually goes.  So it was a long run for both of us today!  It also forced me to start my pace more 'conservatively' (see mom, I didn't say slow!) so that I could pick it up once I dropped her off. 

I say that I 'kind learned' because although I started the run at basically the same time and it was 88 degrees throughout, I took better hydration measures.  I stashed some powerade zero at the end of our drive so that I could chug it (and grab my ipod) when I dropped my mom off at 8.5 miles in.  Then, my mom amazingly brought me an additional bottle of crack juice at the 14.5 mile mark because I was running to a nearby town for the second leg of my journey and there is literally nothing but open country roads out there. 

The hardest part/biggest mistake was the fact that I ran to the opposite town of last week.  You see, our lake is in between two towns, both ~11 miles away.  However, the winds are constantly out of the south lately.  So last week, I ran to the town south of us = good call.  This week I ran to the town to the north = bad call.  11 miles against the wind!  Yuck.

But the good news is, today's run was waaaay better than last weeks.  I picked up the pace alot after I dropped my mom off and finished strong, which was the exact opposite of the draggin-my-ass feeling of last week.  And the fact that I popped of a 20 miler at the end of my week with my 'tempo' race yesterday left me feeling pretty accomplished.  92 mile week which is a happy place for me too.

The rest of the day was spent in an amazing up-north fashion; making GF pizza for lunch, napping in the sun, swimming, and getting fro yo for dinner which I plan to consume in about .5 seconds.  Unfortunately, I also *started* and need to continue to work on my prep work.  Yeah, I hate to think about it, but this teaching this is going to start up again in a month and a half and I gotta actually be prepared to mold young minds again!  Craziness!

Happy Sunday everyone! :)