r/4209435
Started at 7:30 am on the first leg - 10 km by myself. There's a lift bridge along the route that is very busy this time of year. You don't want to get caught when there's a boat coming through because it takes about 10 minutes to lift and lower back into place. As I was coming up to the bridge, it was just lowering the last few inches into place. Heading back to the car, I was feeling pretty good when another runner stopped me - the back of my skirt was tucked up into my fuel belt!
Head back to my car to meet Beth and have sport beans and water and lose my long sleeve top. It's unseasonably warm today (18 C at 7 am and currently 25 C at 4:45 pm) and it was humid. We start running and I feel the familiar blister tingle in my foot. CRAP. Fortunately we were running in the direction of my house anyways so decided to stop off at home and re-tape my feet. I didn't have my house key (locked in the car), thankfully my hubby was home but he didn't expect doorbell ringers so I rang twice and even bellowed from the driveway towards the bedroom window (in case he was still sleeping) for him to open the damn door!
Our original plan was to continue running east through Burlington (lots of stores/bathrooms) but we decided stopping at red lights and running on the concrete sidewalk was not a lot of fun so we headed back to the beach...but there's another boat crossing the bridge so the course got altered ONCE AGAIN to run on North Shore Blvd., which is a series of rolling hills. There's a park where we stopped to fill our water bottles (once each way) and to wash the stinging sunscreen from my eyes...and finally I could let myself think, "this is the final leg!" By this time I was a bit dizzy and I said out loud what I believe every marathoner and wanna-be marathoner feels during the longest training run, "WHAT have I gotten myself in to?!" We walked up a lot of the hills but my Garmin showed the 34 km split and I said NO MORE WALK BREAKS! and found the gas to run the final kilometer.
Then I dragged my sweaty butt to my usual post-run restaurant for some Vietnamese bun (vermicelli), because I needed food more than a shower at that point, and then home where my legs got a wonderful shot of cold water in the shower.
All things considered, my feet are not that bad, one small new blister on my arch, and one on my 2nd smallest toe. I'm going to experiment with new socks.
Obviously, I had a nap when I came home, or else I would not have been able to write this!
