until Eugene, and I am officially a terrible blogger! :) Oh well. I’ve been pretty busy with work, and you know, training for a marathon! I guess I can get a little lazy…
Since I last left you, we completed another 20-miler, which I think felt harder than the first one…Maybe it had something to do with moving the Mt Tabor loop closer to the end of the run. We got to the top and then had to keep going! Oy! My theory: If its hard, it just makes you stronger!
The following weekend, I completed my 8th half marathon in 7 months (with an additional 3 added miles to make it an even 16 mile long run) at the Wheatfield Half Marathon. I wrote a recap for the RunOregon blog about it.
It was a good event. Very small race, and only $5 pre-registered ($10 DOR). It was a bit of a drive (1.5 hours to The Dalles) but it didn’t start until 10am, so we didn’t have to wake up extra early! It was a beautiful out and back course, along wheatfields, green mossy rocks, and most of the course ran alongside a really pretty creek.
Since it was a small race, there were definitely times when J and I were running by ourselves (Good thing we enjoy each other’s company!) And we recognized a lot of people out there, and it was fun to cheer them on as they passed us on their way back to the finish line. We took the course pretty slow, since this was most of our long run. We had gotten to the race start about an hour early (score!) so we did most of our extra 3 miles prior to the race start, but when we came into the finish, we knew we had another extra mile to do.
After the race, our carpool friends took us to a few of their favorite breweries in Hood River: Double Mountain Brewery and Big Horse Brewery. Pizza and beer = delicious post-long run recovery food! :)
This past week was a recovery week, and we took our rest seriously!
Next weekend is the Vernonia Half Marathon, which will be my 9th half-marathon in 8 months. We’re going to use this is part of our last 20-miler (maybe 22-miler; we’ll see). After that…taper time! Wow, Eugene Marathon is coming up quick!!
