Trail Turtles Triumph! Shannon

We did it! We got in a long run and it felt great!

After last week's awful run, I pouted most of the week. I couldn't understand why I was ready to quit a run after 9 miles. The weather was gorgeous, the trails were in great shape, and I was relatively well-rested. Why was it such a tough run?

Pam had had a rough week with an awful stomach flu, so she had a really good reason for not feeling "it" last Sunday. But me, I had no reason! So I was really upset with myself and pouted. But in my defense, I will say this last week was a really stressful week for me. Work was crazy and I was tired.

But anyways, I did manage to get in a nice run with Pam on Thursday evening. It felt GREAT! We'd found our mojo again. We did a nice easy 4 miles out from Cavitt. But after the run, my back started to really hurt me and then my left foot also started to give me grief. WTF! 4 miles and I'm in pain, what's up with that?

So I took it easy and a lot of ibuprofen on Friday! Then Saturday, I was once again feeling sorry for myself because my back was still hurting so I figured I wouldn't get in the 5 miles I needed to. But then I got a text from Pam. She said she was heading to Twin Rocks and would I join her. Hell ya, it's the only way I was gonna get my run in because I most certainly wasn't gonna do it on my own.

Once again, we had another awesome run. We got in a little over 5 miles while battling bikes - apparently Blue Adventures was doing a race out there. Once again, my feet and back were bothering me and I started thinking maybe it was my shoes. Maybe I was due for some new shoes. My other shoes have definitely seen the mileage.

So I went out last night to the Folsom Outlets Nike Store and got me a new pair of trail shoes (the only trail shoes they had). Nike Zoom Red Rocks II. They're a little dirty in this pic cuz I wore em today. They worked great! I'm always a little worried about wearing new shoes, especially on a long run, but I figured I needed to find out if they'd work or not. My feet are sore, however, they are sore in different spots and because I did 20 miles today!!! But after rolling my feet on a golf ball, I feel much better.

Our run was fabulous. We felt great! We started from Sophia Pkwy on the Brown's Ravine Trail. We started out with a bunch of FTR's but they were quickly gone leaving us Trail Turtles behind as usual. But we're ok with that. We feel most comfy in the back of the pack. We have decided that our job as Trail Turtles is to sweep the trails. We make sure that everyone makes it back! Although, we wonder who makes sure we make it back, but that's another story for another day :).

We took a break at about 8.5 miles and had half a PB&J while sitting and enjoying the calm weather.

Self portraits are fun!

As we were sitting there I saw this pretty yellow flower. It was representative to all the pretty flowers we were seeing out there.

My cell phone camera doesn't do the yellow any justice. It was much brighter than this pic shows..

After our break, we headed off to hit our 10 mile turn around point. Just after 9 miles we came to this bridge. Bryan had said we may have to cross a knee high creek and we figured we weren't in the mood to run in wet feet today, so we would just turn around at the creek. But low and behold there is this beautiful bridge for us to cross!

A sign telling us about the bridge

A view from the bridge.

I think this will be a new fishing spot for my hubby!

After our bridge crossing we kept going until we hit 10 miles. We had never gone further than 7 miles on these trails and I was a bit worried about what we might encounter for 3 extra miles. Mostly, would we know what trail to stay on? We had NO problem. The trail is really well marked out there and all went really well.

At our turn around point, we took another self portrait. We are still happy after 10 miles. Or is it were happy to be turning around to go home? HHHHMMM

We headed back and just enjoyed the scenery and the quiet of the trails. For most of the run we had the trails to ourselves. NO body was out there. Once we past the FTR group coming back, we didn't see another sole until we started heading back. Then we started seeing others, mostly bikers.

A very serene cove.

On the run back, once again Pam shows me how strong she is! She is a Turbo Turtle! She manages to pick up speed the closer we get to our stopping point, where I manage to slow down. After we reached the Spanish house, it was all I could do to keep up with her. And I didn't! She was sweet and would stop periodically to make sure I was still coming and to see if I was ok. I was! I'm the slow and steady Turtle and she's the Turbo Turtle! She's my hero!

The run was what we needed to pick up our spirits after last week's awful crash and burn run. We managed to get our 20 miles done in 5 hrs 20 min (or something close to that). We headed to Starbucks, of course, got our goodies and said our goodbyes.

Next week we'll be working at the FTR aid station for the AR50 on Saturday. The aid station theme is Super Heros, so Pam and I are going as Super Turtles, of course. I will be making us capes to round out our costumes.

On Sunday, we head out to Cool, once again, for our final long run before our next 50k. We'll be doing 24 out on the WTC trails. We will once again face Ball Bearing! Hopefully it won't be as painful this time.

Till next week. Stay dirty!