We rocked 20 miles!

Gwen, Jason, Erika, and I did 20 miles this morning :). Gwen is in pink, Erika in green, and I'm in the TNT singlet. Jason, well, that's kinda obvious ;).

Not including stops for aid (4 aid stations where we had to refill our water bottles) and bathrooms (which were about a block off the route, in Primary Children's Hospital), it took us 3:37:xx to do our 20-miler, which was about a 10:51 pace. Pretty good for a VERY hilly route from Sugar House Park, up 15th East to 9th South, up 9th S and Sunnyside to Arapeen, through Research Park and the U on Chipeta, Ft. Douglas Blvd, and Medical Dr., through Federal Heights, up Virginia Street (yeah, baby, we ran/racewalked all the way to the TOP!), across 11th Ave to Bonneville Dr., past the entrance to City Creek to the State Capitol, and all the way back and around the park again. Whew!

Elevation ranged from 4400 feet up to 4900 feet, down to 4600 feet, back up to 4900 feet, and back down to 4400 feet. Definitely more than hilly enough to prepare us for the Seattle RNR Marathon on June 27th.

Yes, we did our 20-miler a week early. Whatever... it worked schedule-wise for the people who needed to do it. We'll do 16 or so next week then taper in earnest.

Splits: miles 1&2 - 21:40, mile 3 11:06, mile 4 11:44, mile 5 10:52, mile 6-9 43:45, miles 10-15 (um, yeah, racewalker's brain prevented me from remembering to push the lap button) approximately 1:05 - this is short a bit because I had the Garmin off for a tenth or so, mile 16 10:42, mile 17-18 20:57, mile 19 11:21, mile 20 10:36.

We did a great job of keeping our pace consistent throughout the workout; yes, the hills slowed us down, but we kept our cadence up going up them and the speed was pretty good considering the 800 ft+ of uphill!

Finally, I think I have really figured out the GI stuff for good; essentially no trouble today (1 small cramp) and I ate bananas, pretzels, jelly beans, and a gel, along with Gatorade. I also kept my ave HR at 149 for the whole 20 w/o any problems. Yay! Oh, and my IT band only protested a tiny bit on one downhill. Otherwise I was FINE.

More photos on Facebook on my account.