I kicked 16 miles in the ass.

Albeit I did so very, very slowly. Whatever--I covered 16 miles of ground today, and that's all that matters!

I've been reading a couple books about marathon running lately, seeing as how I have no idea what the hell I'm doing, and a lot of them suggest a run/walk method for beginners. Seeing as how I doubt my joints are happy about the idea of running for 26.2 miles straight, and also due to the fact that my past few long runs have led to massive headaches, I decided to try it out today. After every four miles I took a two minute walking break and made sure to hydrate really well with my Camelback. Also, I haven't been as religious as some are about using gels or what have you for refueling purposes (I know, I fail at marathon training) so today I made sure to rock the gel halfway through. Totally a huge difference! I felt great when my run ended (though exhausted) and no sign of a headache or extreme exhaustion. Clearly, I have been going about this wrong.

I used to be very hardcore about running the whole way, with no walking breaks. That was before I ran over 15 miles. I totally get the logic of it now. Plus, if someone told me they ran a marathon, but had a couple walk breaks, would I think they didn't really run it? Nope. I'd be impressed that they didn't crawl. My only goal is to finish, and I plan to do so in any way possible. I'm guessing my knees with thank me if I let them walk a couple times along the way. I'm cool with it.

I decided to take my camera with me today to document my 16 mile adventure... it turned out to be rather difficult to get the camera out of the camelbak (while still running), and also it didn't like to focus while in motion. Ah, well, I tried. Here are some photos of me (still alive!), the open road, and the desert:






Around mile 8 I stopped for the gel (as well as to pee behind a sagebrush... a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do) and attempted to take a photo of me jumping in the air (all of this happened during an approximate 2 minute break... I'm quick). What I got was one of me, looking very hardcore and in pain, so I thought it was still funny:



And then post-16 miles drinking some rejuvenating coconut water...I was trying to look peppy. Not so much. You look peppy after 16 miles and tell me how easy it is:



So there we go... 16 miles! Is it time for my nap now?

I have no f-ing idea how I'm going to add 10 miles on top of the 16 miles for the marathon, by the way. I'm really rather curious at this point.