Gourmet Runner

It really does pain me to even discuss this. Honestly. Let's start with the good, shall we? I headed to the gym to run my 18 mile long run on the treadmill today. Yes, I'm a wuss for not wanting to run outside, but it's ridiculously hot here. So...the first 99 minutes/10-ish miles were uneventful. I watched some Top Chef Just Desserts with the captions on, and ran nice and slow. The treadmill does an auto cool down at 99 minutes, so it's the perfect time to get off, refill the water bottle, and stretch. I started her back up...and then bad things starting to happen. Bad things in the belly area. I pushed through and pushed through, thinking it would go away. I took a minute to walk, even knocked down my pace. And then.... Clenching . I have never jumped off a treadmill, grabbed my stuff, and booked it out of there faster in my life. I was literally jogging to the bathrooms. Without giving too much away, it didn't end well. I got to the the stalls just in the nic...

Just for the record...17 miles is freakin' long. It was literally the longest run of my life! I really needed a successful long run to get my heart back into marathon training. The high heat and humidity around here lately mean that most of my runs are slow, interrupted by walking breaks, and usually get cut short a little. So when I saw I had a 17 miler on the schedule, I decided to use a guest pass at a local gym to get the run inside. 17 miles = 2 hours, 45 minutes (9:42 pace) Yes, I spent nearly 3 hours on a treadmill facing the wall. And guess what? I LOVED IT! The gym has cardio machines with TVs, so I watched some news, lots of E! and an episode of Chopped to make the time go by faster. The best part of all? When I stopped to finish, and the treadmill said 7 miles (I ran the first 10 and went for water) and the guy next to me said, "Wow, I've never seen a girl run 7 miles on a treadmill before." You have NO IDEA how satisfying it was to say, "Actually, I...