Tough Chicks - and 70.3 for the week!

Tara and I were two tough chicks this morning. I had to run 20 miles for my long run this week, so since Chad was pacing the 20 miler race in Georgetown, I signed up too. Tara has been running all of my long run distances, so she signed up.

We were definitely taking it easy. We walked every single flippin' water stop. Walked them. We talked most of the way until we got to the hard uphill-into-the-wind section between 14 and 16. We did not look at the watch the entire time, only pressing the button and hearing it beep so that we would not be tempted to race.

Can I tell you that I thought we were going slow? For sure the last five miles felt like 9:30-10:00 miles. Dude...we were so much faster than expected. Here are the splits...

Miles 1 & 2 - 18:50 (9:25 each) We started slow on purpose.
mile 3 - 9:07
mile 4 - 9:08
miles 5 & 6 - 17:36 (8:48 each)
mile 7 - 8:26
mile 8 - 8:40
miles 9 & 10 - 19:22 (9:41 each) also suspected that mile 10 had an extra .2 miles because of a mistake in the course. Otherwise, that would be 8:48 pace for the 2.2 miles.
mile 11 - 8:47 (hilly)
mile 12 - 8:51 (unpaved road)
mile 13 - 8:42
mile 14 - 8:29
mile 15 - 9:07 (uphill into the wind)
mile 16 - 8:57
mile 17 - 8:36
mile 18 - 9:02 (uphill portions)
mile 19 - 9:01 (water and just plain tired, that's all)
mile 20 - 8:47

Total Time - 2:59:36
For 20 miles, that's an 8:59 overall pace
For 20.2 miles (which is what we think it was because of the wrong path during mile 10), that's an 8:53 overall pace.

It feels completely badass to run solid sub-9:00 miles most of the way.

Walking water stops. Starting slow. Not looking at watch.

Awesome! Thank you to Tara for pulling me through the last five miles. I was hurting. We kept counting our weekly mileage total at each mile marker....51/65, 52/66, 53/67, 54/68, 55/69, 56/70!!!