First Official Long Run & Snowboarding

Saturday I made sure to get my long run in. It would be my first official long run for this marathon. The first one was actually last week, but I skipped it since I was sick. Today the long run was just 7 miles, though, so no problem. I ran my favorite route, up the steep hill on 300 N. then down to North Temple and up 2nd Avenue. I really love running fast downhill, but it means nothing if you don't put in the effort to get to the top of the hill first. That's my favorite thing about running hills, it's an immediate sense of accomplishment when you get to the top!

Coming down was so fun, and I was actually able to hold onto about a 7:30 min/mile for quite a while, even after it flattened out a little! (see mile 5) Then it felt like 8 min/mile was slow, and 9 min/mile was like recovery pace - Awesome!

I ran while Pete was at Krav, and the kids were at my dads so I didn't have anyone to meet me at the top or anything for me to trade shoes, and I really didn't want to do a shorter loop closer to home to trade there so I just decided to take a break from the Bioms and run only in my old shoes. It was a really fun run, but I tried not to let my feet revert back to their old heel striking ways. I think I did pretty good too. Check out my awesomeness:

1. 9:14
2. 9:38
3. 10:19
4. 9:37
5. 8:25
6. 8:46
7. 9:01

Total Distance: 7 Miles

Total Time: 1:05:01

Average Pace: 9:17 min/mile

Wahoo! I looked up a finish time calculator on runnersworld.com, and it said that with this run, my projected marathon finish time is 4:03:17! That is so close to what I want it to be. If I had finished that run just one minute faster, my projected time would be under 4 hours! And if I put in my 10k from 2 weeks ago, it projects my time to be 3:55:06! Pretty cool hu? I find this really encouraging, especially because the Utah Valley Marathon is mostly downhill so I should be able to do that pace! It might really be feasible for me to finish in under 4 hours! I'm excited!

When I got home, I just had time to shower and get dressed before it was time to head up to Brighton. The reason my dad had the kids for the day was so we could go snowboarding.

I tried to get a picture of the mountain on the way up.

This was my first time going during the day. I had thought, "What could a day pass possibly have that would be better than a night one?" Well, I found that out!

It was just breathtaking up there. Here's one of many beautiful views.

They had more than just 3 little lifts open for one thing, and we got up to the very top of the mountain where you could even look over and see Heber on the other side!

And that's the beautiful Heber Valley! We kind of got in trouble trying to take this picture because we went too close to the edge. Oops, I'm just glad we didn't fall!

It was just so beautiful! It was also so much fun because I'm pretty much awesome at riding my back edge now so I hardly ever fell. :)

We got up there at about 1 and kept moving until about 5 since all but a few lifts close at 4. Then we took a break to get some food and rest in the lodge for al little while. My knees and legs were starting to get really sore and I was tempted to say, "Let's just go now," but Pete talked me into going on the bunny hill to work on riding my front edge. We did the bunny hill 4 or 5 times, and I was starting to get it so we decided to go on the big run (the biggest of the 2 night skiing ones anyway) one more time before heading home. For the most part I played it safe and rode my back edge, but there were a few times I was actually able to switch from back to flat to front without falling! It was pretty cool, and Pete said that was a little bit of what real snowboarding feels like.

Here's Pete.

This was just a really pretty place where we stopped to take a break.

It was fun such a fun day! I love days chock full of activity like that even if my legs are not happy with me by the end of it. My knees were really sore by the time we got the kids and got home, but I iced them before I went to sleep and they were fine the next day.