12 Miles at Bradbury

Ryan and I decided to take advantage of the fact that Sam was going into daycare today (because the center is closed on Friday, we switched her day off this week), and go for a run at Bradbury together! Hurray! This hasn't happened in ages. I had planned to get in a longish run of around 16 miles, so Ryan was going to tag along for 8 to 10 miles and get in a long run himself. Although I was looking forward to running with Ryan, I was feeling exhausted before we even started. I didn't have any energy going in, and I never found my mojo along the way. I had really been hoping for a solid run that would help me feel like signing up for Pisgah was a good idea. Instead, I suffered through 12 soggy, humid, heavy miles, at a pace that got slower and slower, and more painful and more painful, as the miles went on. Ryan, ever the good hubby and running partner, stuck with me, and helped keep me going, but by the final few miles he took off on his own, and I just slogged on through the remaining steps, waiting for the run to be over. On top of feeling sleep deprived right from the get-go, the humidity just seemed to suck the life out of me today. It certainly wasn't one of my best days out on the trail, and definitely wasn't the run I was hoping for, to say the least.

We started off by running the Bruiser, minus the Island and O trails. My Garmin was reading around 8.25 miles when we got back to the parking lot, and while part of me wanted to stop right there, I also wanted to at least get in a double digit run. Ryan suggested running the Squall course, which goes on some fun singletrack we don't run very often before looping around on the Boundary trail. I added on a quarter mile to round the mileage at the end, unwilling to admit defeat before I saw 12.0 on the Garmin. It wasn't pretty, but I was out on my feet for 2:16:00, and I suppose that counts for something. Hoping for a bit more umph tomorrow!!