Peak mileage

It's taper time!

Yesterday's 12-mile run will be my longest for this training cycle with my goal race, the Hippie Chick Half, just two weeks away.

The weather was supposed to turn nasty in the late morning, but the thunderstorms never arrived in our area. We didn't even see rain. But my friend, Gregg, got caught in a hail storm during his long run in Newberg! Glad it stayed nice for my outing.

Brad and I left at the same time but soon parted ways as I was going very slow on tired legs and he was planning to do some tempo work in the middle of his long run.

My only goal was to get the miles under me. I wore my heart-rate monitor and tried to keep it low, but I was so tired from this past week that I just couldn't do it. I felt like I was almost walking by the end!

Also - my iPod was dead (totally my fault), so it was 2 hours without music. Man, I sure could have used it for the last 5K or so. It seemed like the longest 3 miles of my life :)

Brad finished way before me but was waiting on the front porch when I arrived home so we could get a picture together. What a good running buddy :)

It felt good to battle it out and overcome my fatigue. But now it's time to recover and taper and get ready to run fast again!