Holy Hills Batman

I admitted earlier this weekend that I had been a slacker with my runs last week. Boy, did I feel it this morning!! The long, slow run was moved to Sunday to accomodate Drew, who had spent the week in Vegas on business. This had been decided upon at the beginning of Team Tiara. Yesterday, Christina decided to join in for the 10 mile fun fest. Good thing, because I got a message from Drew that she was stuck in the ATL with no gas to get home. This whole gas thing is crazy scary! After a BIG Bama victory, Jeff and I set the alarm for 6:00 am and went to bed. As I laid down, I realized that I had not really eaten any dinner. Not good. Worse yet, there were no Lara Bars to eat pre-run. We got up, rushed out to meet Christina at Regions Bank. The first 3 miles, I felt really good. We were on a steady, slow pace of 11:30 and I felt I could run all day at that. We stopped for water and a potty break and hit the asphalt again. At mile 6, I began to unravel. I had now been running for over an hour with no fuel, other than water and the one Sharkie I had sucked on. At the next water stop, about mile 6.5, I knew I needed to get some energy gel and all we had was Accel gel, which in the past had really affected my stomach in a bad way. Beggars can't be choosers and I took in the sweet, runny Accel. We took off up North Main Street, which I knew would not be easy. Holy Smokes! Easy wasn't even a consideration. The hill up to Earle was bad enough, but then came the LOOONNNGG hill up to Hillcrest. I had to stop and walk. I thought to myself, if I can get past this, I'll be okay. No doing - there were more hills along the route. Not having run in that area before, I didn't know what to expect. The hills were incredibly steep and long. I felt the lack of fuel in my system and my energy was draining with each step. I can't remember a time in the recent past when I've been so happy to finish a run. At mile 10, my Garmin beeped and I thanked God for letting me make it all the way. So, I had a couple of life lessons: 1- eat well the day/night before long runs and certainly eat the morning of; and, 2- get those training runs in, as much as possible. This week, I'll do my speed work on Tuesday and get in an easy run on Wednesday. We will be doing our longest run since the marathon, 12 miles, on Friday before leaving for Alabama since I'm retaking the LSAT on Saturday. I need to concentrate on eating well and getting plenty of rest this week in preparation for both the long run and the test.