Day 35 - Success!

Holy Cow...we did 16.6 miles today and I'm alive to write about it. I really did have a lot of fear going into today's run. I just wasn't sure I could do it. I'm full of self-doubt these days! But, I went to bed early last night (asleep by 10:00pm), got up around 5:20am to start the usual routine: Roctane GU, immodium, body glide, get dressed, 2 puffs on inhaler, watch set with time/distance/pace alerts, potty, SPI belt/amphipod filled, weather check. Before I knew it my sister was at my house and it was go time! We headed out into uncharted territory for us (aka a new route). I decided I like running in the dark. The time/miles pass so quickly. We had settled into a good pace and before I knew it G had beeped at 2 miles. Shortly thereafter we see a dog get hit by a car....so sad! The dog looked just like my beloved dingo and whined/cried just like him too. The dog sped off and we never did catch up with him. I guess he was okay?? At 45 minutes or so we stopped to take our first GU, potty, and re-fill water bottles. We did a couple of 1 mile laps around a local park. It was nice to run on a freshly paved trail and have the park to ourselves! At the 8-mile mark I was still feeling good, but 8 more miles just seemed like such a long way to go. It was daylight by now and we were starting to see more and more runners out. That always helps me (mentally) to stay focused and get back on track. We stopped again around 90 minutes to take our second GU. The last 45 minutes had flown by! It didn't seem like it could possibly be time to re-fuel again! But, we were almost at 10 miles...and the home stretch was in sight. My sister and I talked the whole time. There wasn't any long periods of silence...always a good indicator of how I'm feeling! We decided to forgo our 3rd GU stop, seeing as we had less than 3 miles to finish. I knew at this point that today was going to be a successful run! We finished the last few miles easily and when G beeped at 16 miles we decided to keep going. We were about .75 mile away from my house, which would have been a nice cool-down walk, but we were both time-crunched and decided to keep running. I slowed down significantly (we were going uphill) and let my sister run ahead. When I hit "stop" on G, it showed a distance of 16.62 miles. Awesome!! I walked the last block home and was greeted by my hubby and kids. They're always so proud of me...and supportive. Hubby got me some water and allowed me to use him as balance as I stretched.
I hobbled up the steps, took 800 mg of ibuprofen and took a much needed shower. Hubby brought one of the 22 pound bags of ice upstairs and I filled the tub with the ice and cold water, after my shower. In an effort to speed things along and pass the time, I brought my make-up bag, deoderant, etc into the tub with me and got ready while soaking. I also had a very curious 4 year old for "assistance". He really wanted to get in, but every time he'd touch his toe to the water he'd shriek and go running away! As an aside - I would never advocate letting my child get in an ice bath...I knew he'd never do it! He won't even hold his boo boo bunny to his bumps/bruises! Anyway, I stayed in for 18 minutes and then I just couldn't take it anymore. I think getting out was worse than getting in. My feet just hurt so badly. I probably shivered for the next hour.
I grabbed my breakfast, another glass of water, my lunch for later that day and was out the door. I got to work around 10:oo am....not too bad! I don't think the exhaustion has set in...but I bet by the time I get to church and am responsible for 15+ 3 year olds, I'll be feeling it.