Whoomp Here it is!

Ok, so only Jessica will really appreciate that title but I was actually thinking that/singing that as I was running! ha ha.
Well today was GREAT! After my fall on Wed., I did a slow tentative 3 miles just around the neighborhood on Thursday just to make sure everything was still in working order. I felt pretty good, knee was only a little sore but nothing that worried me. Friday was a good day to have a rest day after running 3 days in a row and I tried all day to psych myself up for today. I even treated myself to a big bowl of pasta for dinner in the name of "carb loading" (I think we should have a pasta party the night before the race!) I originally thought it would be good to run 8 miles of the actual course but the course is on some pretty busy streets which will be closed down on race day and running on them with all the cars and smog didn't sound very appealing. But I didn't really want to do an out and back. So I got ambitious and mapped out an 8 mile circle on walkjogrun.net. Its the same concept as google earth so nothing that exciting but I found it a little more user friendly, I always have issues w/ google earth.

So, I got up at 6, fed the baby and ate and went back to sleep until 7. I was out the door a little after 7 and on the road. I had debated timing myself but decided to do it just so I would know. The first part of my run was on the actual course and it was downhill, so don't worry there's at least one down hill! It was cool and I felt GOOD! My knee didn't hurt at all, I just felt good. I would say about 80% of my run was up hill but even that wasn't too bad. I had chosen good streets with wide bike lanes so I could run in the road, they weren't very busy and it was just a good day. At about one hour I stopped and paused my watch and ate two Shot Blocks with some water. They are kind of like big gummy bears but they are squares. They weren't as gross as I thought they'd be and I do think they made a difference, plus they weren't messy at all. I probably could have used a few more later but I only did the two. I drank most of my water at stop lights so I think I kept pretty well hydrated and I didn't really start feeling tired and slowing down until the very end which was great. My knee only hurt once on a pretty steep downhill where I was going pretty fast. I finished in 92 min but I also didn't stop my watch at all stoplights so I am going to say that averages to about 11 min miles. Not too shabby considering I didn't feel like I was consciously trying to run fast. I was proud of myself. I think I can do what I did today and five point one more. I can! Yay!