16 miles and what do you get......

 Good grief, Lucia must have a sense when I need to get up a little early for a long run because she was up in the middle of the night rolling around protesting over who knows what finally at 6:00 am, fifteen minutes after I was scheduled to get up I got her a juice box and she finally settled in. I on the other hand had to start my day.

 Grabbing my running stuff in the dark to try and not disturb the ol' ball and chain. I sneak downstairs have some Nutella on bread and move on out.

 Nice group at 7:00am, 6 strong. Within a half mile of the run I already feel like a piece of poop. No energy, sluggish, no focus. I make a decision right before the two mile mark to eat a gel. I always have a couple when I run 10 miles or longer but I have never had one so early. Today I did and within no time I started feeling a lot better. My focus improved, my cadence normalized, and I started talking more to the other runners. This was the main clue that I was back to normal self. Lots of tough hills today most of them will be on the 25k course so the more we do them the better prepared we will be on race day. We meet up with 8:0 o'clock group and we become a centipede of 12 strong. Right up Moses Mountain and right down. we loop around the red yellow trail then we turn around and loop back where we came another massive hill that takes us up the back end of High Rock and the 8:00 o'clock crew is dropped off.

 We start back to WillowBrook minus one but plus two, the Ferrittis. A devious duo of fierce speed and passion. Ferretti in Italian means passionate runner, I think anyway. Moses Mt. again up the lil' bastard hill that leads to the trail intersection that gets us to Rockland. The Step Hill is next, A hill that starts out very technical but stretches out to a nice hill where you can power up the second half of it. The Nature Center is our last water stop and then its just 2.5 miles to the finish.

 As we wrapped up today's run Myself, the Ferritti's, and Cupcake Bob pulled ahead. Once you cross the last street there is approx. 1.75 miles left and we decided that we had enough trail running for the day. We turned it up, cruising over roots and rocks. Gracefully negotiating through the switchbacks. Finally through the cracks between the trees we see glimpses of the Carousel. We are so close, my lungs are burning, my legs are this weird mixture of jelly and concrete but I burst out from the trees a stumbling, sweaty mess. Tired but elated that after 14 miles of tough trail running I had the ability and more importantly the will to finish strong. A great precursor to what I should be able to do on race day.