These are a few of my favorite things!

Sometimes even though it's snowing and 30 something degrees outside you can still have a great time.  Today was one of those days.  When I woke up and looked outside and saw that it was raining, I thought, "I can still go.  It's just a little rain.  Besides 16 miles on the treadmill?  I'd rather run in a blizzard!"  Then when it started to hail and then snow, I knew we were in for it.  Jodi and I left and though my lungs were struggling as usual and my bum and legs were still extremely sore from Thursday, it was just a fun run.  We got to experience snow, sleet, hail, wind, rain, and even the sun.  As the snowflakes were hitting my face, some were staying there and I couldn't help but think of the Julie Andrews song My Favorite Things and the line "snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes."  I love that kind of snow.  Before I knew it we had already done the first lap and were almost halfway through the second.  Jodi turned off later than we had planned on and she ended up doing almost 9 miles!  Awesome job!  I could tell she was feeling good today and almost suggested she just go the 10 with me, but didn't want her to pay for it later.  Next week, though!  Time just flew by with Jodi and I can't say how nice it is to have a running buddy!  I finished up the 16 miles and felt pretty good for most of it.  I could really feel my sore body.  There were a few times during the run that my legs just felt like they were on autopilot and they didn't want to stop even though my lungs were telling me to.  Good run, all in all.  Ran it in 2 hours and 43 minutes: an average of 10 minutes 10 seconds per mile.  The last half was slightly faster but not by much.  So because of the song...I started thinking about some of my favorite things about running today.  So here they are...in no particular order!

Legs...would be kinda hard to run without those!

Snow that's not too cold.

Hail...fun to try and catch in your hand.

Jodi...makes the run seem shorter and I love the conversation...I pretty much just love this woman.

Music...nice to have when Jodi leaves.

Mountains...we have the most beautiful scenery to look at!

Sun...I swear that I got a burst of energy every time the sun peeked out!

Water....ohhhhh, so good!

Shoes...I'd have much thicker callouses if I didn't have comfy shoes.

Husband...takes care of everything while I'm gone and takes good care of me when I get back.

Downhills...such a good break for the lungs.

Uphills...makes me stronger.

Home...boy doesn't that look good!

Since there's just 3 weeks left until the Salt Lake Marathon, I decided to try and use the gels today and see if I couldn't get them to work better than last year.  I used 1/2 the gel and tried to drink 4 oz. of water.  Of course it's pretty hard to judge what 4 oz. is.  I tried my best and think I may have gotten it figured out towards the end.  It's more water than what I thought it was.  Good thing I'm just doing half the packet instead of the whole thing like last year.  I think that was a good thing.  I wore the shirt I'm going to wear in the marathon today to see if there were any chaffing issues I needed to be aware of.  I think it will work good.  Wonder what the weather will be like in 3 weeks!

Drank 3/4 Ultra Fuel this morning.  Waited 1 1/2 hours to run.  That seemed to be good as far as potty breaks were not necessary this week.  

Used 2 gels during the run.

Drank Endurox R4 for recovery.

Also tried something new after my run today.  Kind of crazy, but I was so sore I thought I'd try it.  The ice bath.