Hell yeah.

16.4 miles straight, with a 0.6 warm-up run beforehand. Total mileage today: 17.0 miles. Time 2:55:45 - average 10:41min/mile - those last two miles I was having a hard time with my knees. I felt a little slower today than usual, which obviously played out in my average mileage. I gained 10 sec per mile. I woke up this morning sore, especially in the upper body, from last night's workout. I only had about a 12 hour recovery period.

Around mile 3-4, a group of runners very slowly came upon me chatting, so I stepped off to the side to let them past, since the talking was kind of distracting. So I ended up running behind them, letting them pace me for a while. But really close behind them. When they pulled off in Lexington, one of the guys ran after me since I kept going. Apparently they thought I was someone named Kate who they wanted to verify I was running home. I apologized and explain that I wasn't part of their group. He looked confused but headed off. They were super pleasant people - one was wearing a chi running t-shirt. I was a little tempted to ask which group they were, but hey, I wasn't about to turn back.

I filled up with G2 (the red kind) in my water bottles today. I have to admit that I really appreciated the extra sugars and electrolytes that I wasn't getting in water. It really helped push me through today. I think that in the future, I may have to buy a couple more water bottles for the belt, or invest in a 4-pack fuel belt. While I anticipate the necessity for training, it's not something I'll wear during the marathon itself, given water/gatorade station every few miles. I think that my two 6 oz bottles were definitely not enough today though. I even drank the rest of the Gatorade bottle before the run, and had fueled up on water the night before.

By the time I ended the run, my legs and knees were just screaming at me. I felt like I just got off a horse or something - walking funny. But I headed into Whole Foods, where there were lots of free samples of oranges, watermelon and other yummy stuff. That tackled the starvation re-fueling factor. I ended up grabbing a Naked Protein shake and a Builders Bar. Ha, 50g protein total. Maybe a little more than I needed. But I just entered my run into the training log on Mapmyrun.com and it says that I burned over 1800 calories. So I figure my 800 calories were probably not so bad in the grand scheme of things. I seriously needed refueling.

Anyway, I'll laying down now, giving my legs a much needed rest after walking home. I might take a little nap before I do something more productive than running today. I'm just really quite blissfully happy. While I couldn't have made it those extra 9 miles to a marathon after today's run, I still have 1-1.5 months to get there. I just need to pick up my mid-week runs. I can't keep getting distracted by lifting and sickness.