22 Miler

I ran 22 miles this morning and am now officially on taper!!!!  I love taper:).  I started my run from OMSI with two friends who were running 8 miles.  My marathon training partner was mysteriously missing (I found out after that she was okay, just overslept and not feeling very good).  Since I was supposed to have a partner for the duration, I didn't bring my iPod and was initially not very happy to have to run 14 miles solo and without tunes.  I quickly decided not to worry about it and just enjoy the companionship that I did have for the early miles.  

We headed south along the Springwater Trail towards the Sellwood Bridge.  Once over the bridge and heading north along the Waterfront, one of my friends was slowing down and not sure that she'd make the whole 8 miles.  We slowed down some and she managed to hang in there until 7 miles.  She decided to walk it in from there so we were down to just two of us.  The Hawthorne Bridge marked 8 miles and the beginning of my solo run.  I continued on past the Steele Bridge and headed down Naito for two miles.  The 11 mile mark was my turn around and I headed back the way I came with a brief stop at a construction site's port-a-potty.  

As I made my way back to the Waterfront, I was feeling good...  my legs were a bit tired and I started making an effort to drink at each mile to make sure that I didn't let myself get dehydrated.  I had to make another stop at the bathrooms at OHSU and then had a tough time getting back up to my cruising speed.  As I came back off of the Sellwood Bridge, I realized that I only had about 3.5 miles left - WOOHOO!!!  I decided that I'd try to pick up the pace for the last 3 miles...  which I thought I was doing until I actually checked my Garmin with 2.5 left and I'd actually slowed down!! Oh well, I decided that I'd wait and rock out that final mile.  Which I did:).  

All in all, it was a good run even if it was a bit lonely.  Here's the nitty gritty:

Mile 1 - 10:12
2 - 10:02
3 - 10:09
4 - 10:48
5 - 10:50
6 - 10:35
7 - 10:57
8 - 10:20
9 - 9:52
10 - 9:59
11 - 10:07
12 - 10:09
13 - 10:04
14 - 10:00
15 - 9:48
16 - 10:26
17 - 9:51
18 - 10:08
19 - 10:04
20 - 10:22
21 - 10:22
22 - 9:29


Overall - 3:44:37/10:12