T - 56 : phew! That was rough. REALLY ROUGH.

We ran the first 11.5 miles mostly flat to downhill from North Austin to lake Austin Blvd. Then the fun really began. 8.5 miles of hills including these 3 and a half beauties:

- Red Bud Trail up to Westlake Drive
- Stratford to Zilker Park
- Barton Hills Drive and Ridgeview.
(I ran most of this well under 8min/mile, according to my conversation with Bruce later on.)

Phew!
I cranked away up those hills, partly because I don't run hills slow, but also because I wanted to feel tired for the final part of the workout. I knew that running 20 miles super easy was not going to give me a good idea of how hard this day could be. (I know it sounds weird, but that's what I wanted. I wanted to tire my legs a good amount going in to Miles 20 - 26. )

Larry was easily crowned King of the Hills, but I wasn't too far behind. [Wow is Larry running strong these days. wow wow wow!]

After running 20 miles, we ended up at the Austin High track for a fianl 6 mile workout. 20 + 6miles = 26 miles, essentially a couple of tenths shy of the marathon distance.

The final 6 miles were to be run at Marathon Goal Pace(7:15), then Half MarathonGoal Pace(6:50), then 10km Pace(6:30).

Here's what I ended up with:
Mile 21:
7.23 Goal 7:15... ooops! I forget what lap we fell asleep on. I think it was lap 3 thatwas way too slow.

Mile 22:
2.10
3.09.4 weird splits... I clicked in weird places...
1.47.7 but it was a 7:06 total

MGP 2 miles avg of 7:15.5... goal 7.15 YEAH! (nice recovery to even out the splits to where we needed these 2 miles to be!)

Mile 23:
1.42.4
1.41.3 total 6:47.6... goal 6:50
1.45.5 OH YEAH!!!
1.38.4

Mile 24:
1.40.99
1.40.95 total 6:43.84... goal6:50
1.41.6 OH YEAH!!!!
1.40.3

HMGP 2 miles avg of 6:46... Goal 6:50 YEAH!!!

Mile 25:
1.36.5
1.37.5 total 6:29.45... Goal 6:30
1.37.45 YEAH!!!
1.38

Mile 26:
1.35.9
1.37.1 total 6:24.6... Goal 6:30
1.37.3 YEAH!!!
1.34.3

10K Pace 2 miles avg of 6:26.5 ... Goal 6:30 HELL YEAH!!!

Ouch. This was honestly the 2nd hardest run i've ever done in my career. (first being my Marathon debut/collapse). After the first 3 miles, I honestly started to doubt my ability to keep hitting my paces, but I just kpet taking it 100 meters at a time, and got really vocal with the people in "the train" running along. Keeping everything positive, I figured if I encouraged everyone else, I would at the same time make myself stronger and keep going too. "We can run a 5K, can't we?" "Who can't run a 5K?" "do NOT let Sisson win" "We CANNOT let Sisson break us with this workout" etc. etc. ha! I'm cracking up just thinking about the crap I yelled out!

At 7 laps to go (1.75 miles left) it was down to Kirsten and I, and a quick conversation ensued:
Me: Do you have 7 more laps in you?
Kirsten: Yeah
Me: Ok, you're going to have to pull me in then, because I don't know if i can do this"
(after the run she told me she was pretty darn tired too! ha!)

Big props to Kirsten. She was SOLID today! wow. I was so freakin' tired and way too busy to do nothing but make sure we were on target every 100meters, I just kept yelling out the splits: "A second fast" "money" "we're good" "we banked a second" "uh oh, slow by a second". I coudn't look behind me to see where others had ended up, and with 3 laps to go, out of nowhere comes Damon. Holy shit! Damon is a beast on the track. This guy has some big time heart. He then grabbed the lead and brought Kirsten and I home.
This was rough. REALLY rough... but there was no way I was going to fail. I simply was not going to let that track defeat me, and I wasn't going to give my coach the pleasure of seeing me break. (of course, this isn't how it played out in real life: Steve was REALLY supportive on the track and REALLY wanted to see us do well, cheering us on every single lap. but what I'm writing is what went through my head.)
anyway, it's not like I won the world cup or anything, but this was a major accomplishment!

A slooooow shuffle back to Barton Springs and then hopped in the magical mystical waters to soak the legs and cool off.

28.16 miles is what Bruce told me his GPS said at the finish of our run today.
That's two consecutive 28 mile Saturdays. He also told me his GPS said we ran 7:41 pace overall, including ALL miles we ran (yes, including the slow 1.5 mile shuffle home from the track). Wow!

Then a bunch of mojitos, and beers, with chips and salsa, and polkadots cupcakes were consumed during the Texas - OU game, but that deserves a whole different post!