30- Long Run, short day

Where has today gone?  Between my long run, running errands, and cleaning my whole apartment...all 700 square feet, lol...the day has flown!  Now it is 7pm and I'm at a coffee shop waiting for my sis and bro-in-law to get here so we can go to dinner!  Long run = hungry me.

Butt, the run itself was not-so-great.  The route was nice, sort of a combo of roads and a long stretch through the network of parks for about 7 miles, then ending with a character-building three miles up "the parkway."  It actually got pretty hot out, since I left at 10am and all and the sun was intense and reinforced my sweet double watch tan (on wrist I have my 'always on' sports watch, and the other, my Garmin when I run.)  I actually went on a 'forbidden trail' that meant I had to hop through a fense.  And then I had to backtrack when a bunch of guys + a huge shovel-machine thingy were in the way.  Ha, oh well.  Sadly, I think the highlight of my run was a spontaneous popsickle.  I stopped to get a drink of water at mile 15-ish at the park at the foot of "The Parkway".  Suddenly, I saw that because the park is also a canoe livery, they have a snack shop.  I was deseperate for anything because water just wasn't cutting it.  I saw a popsickle and went for it.  I realized that 80 calories of popsickle on an 18 mile run probably aren't going to help a whole lot physically, but I was hoping for more of a mental life.  Not so much.  The parkway went by fast, but was tough.  I rallied to finish the last (uphill) mile in 7:52, but that didn't help my 8:32 pace overall that much.  Oh well.  I'm happy I did it, and now can enjoy my 12 hour market day tomorrow, then family time, and brunch on Sunday. 

Hoping that my sis will get here soon.  We are going to a place that serves all locally made/grown burgers!  Burger after a long run = perfection.

And my legs are still twitching like crazy, but I am going to go with marathonmaiden's suggestion that that means I'm building muscle.  I like that thought! :)

I'm off!