Gus Saves the Day

Again, trusty 'ol Gus was eager for the 11 miler this morning with Mel and Kerrie...totally located a satellite like a pro. :)  He also was the only Garmin that was turned back on after some brief water stop pauses.  Heh heh.  Everyone wanted his stats!  Actually, not everyone, but a couple people forgot to hit the "resume" button.  Super Gus!

This Saturday long run was very similar to the run two weeks ago when I first became a Ninja Running Bandit on the trail with Mel and her training group.  This means that Kerrie and I were running a little late and I had to speed/sprint my way past all the other training peeps and try to catch up to Amazon Tall Mom Mel.  EEK!  A couple times I looked at Gus and saw numbers that started in 7.  Like 7:45 and 7:52.  Oh goodness, how far ahead was she?  Let's just say that after 2.5 miles I had to yell "MEL!" when I seriously could not go the last 100 feet to catch up.  I was dying.  Luckily she heard me and slowed down, but after saying our "hellos" she said something that made me see stars: "We're going a different route today:  It's got more hills."

Excuse me?  Did you mention the H word in that sentence?

Oh crap.

After briefly stopping before the monster hill to stretch my knee, I felt a million times better--stars were gone.  That's when a fellow marathon runner-in-training named Janna started to run with us.  She's hilarious!  We ran "three abreast" (as Tall Mom stated) for the remainder of the run (approx. 6 miles).  Mel and I had planned on 11 miles, so Janna was game and went with us.  At the turnaround for the other runners we ran into a super speedy Kerrie at mile 5, who snapped a pic by sprinting ahead and telling us to slow down. :)

 

Janna, me, Mel

Besides race pics, this is the first time I've had my picture taken on a training run.  Ah yes, felt like a rockstar. The rest of the miles flew by with fun conversation and laughter.  It was a successful 11 miles!

 

Ta DA!

Unfortunately, there was no Sam the Eagle sightings today. *sigh*  Apparently that date he had a few weeks ago must've been major because he's been spending all the time with her.  Geez, bros before ho's, Sam.

Thank you Mel and Kerrie!  The Ninja Running Bandit strikes again! Mwa ha ha ha!