18 Miles of Sunshine

Earlier in the week Jenn had sent me a message letting me know that we would have to do our 18 mile run separately this weekend because of her babysitting arrangements. After I received Jenn's message I put the following status update on my Facebook page...Jodi Wolfe Higgins
has 18 miles on the schedule Sunday and Jenn isn't able to run it with me. Any takers or will it be a solo mission? Eventually my friend Darlene made the following comment...Hey, Jodi. I can't quite make 18 but maybe I could join you for 14. Send me a message with the details and we can try to get it in. I was thrilled to see her comment and immediately sent her a message and we figured out where and when we would run. Yesterday afternoon Darlene called and we finalized our plans for our long run. We would be meeting at the Rocky River Reservation at 8:30 AM this morning. When I got in my truck at 8:00 AM I was greeted with this lovely first day of spring temperature.

I met up with Darlene and we got ready to run! I knew that I would have 4 miles to finish after Darlene and I completed our run. I was fine with that because I was thrilled to have a running partner for 14 miles. Shortly before mile 7 we made a pit stop in the pro shop to use their restrooms. Once we came back out onto the trail I mentioned to Darlene that we could just turn around at mile 7 so she could call it quits at 14 miles. At this point Darlene mentioned that she was feeling good and would be willing to go out 8 miles! I was thrilled because I instantly realized that I would only have 2 miles to complete once we got back to our trucks! It was a great run with fantastic conversation. Darlene did fantastic. Prior to today her longest run had been 13.5 miles or so. Once we got back to our starting point I used the restroom and then we snapped a quick picture. I would say we are still looking pretty good after 16 miles!

After I dropped off some extra gear that I had taken off during the course of our run, refilled my handheld and thanked Darlene for running with me, I reluctantly went back out for my final 2 miles. I quickly got into a groove and the last two miles were actually enjoyable as well! I arrived back at my truck with 18 miles run and done! I headed to buy ice and came home. Once home I brewed some hot chocolate in the Keurig and then put on layers and got into the very cold 28 lb ice bath.

Once the ice bath was completed, I got cleaned up, uploaded my workout to dailymile, and then headed out to get some lunch.

All in all, it was a fantastic run! We missed you out there today Jenn! Thanks for running with me today Darlene! It means a lot!

Keep running, you're simply the best, and you inpsire me!!