Tour de StL

We had quite the Tour de StL this morning. I mean when you're trying to pound 21 miles of pavement, you have to. I'm waiting on pics from our fearless leader Paul. As soon as he sends them out, I will add them to the blog. We had our typical Forest Park dinosaur shot. There was also the first water stop, the Arch, City Garden, the River Front and of course our finishline.

So I definitely had some nerves over the past few days. I had it narrowed down to either the impending 21 mile run/marathon or wedding stuff. I think I figured out which one had me stressed more. Can you guess? I'll give you a hint, it wasn't running ;). Well only a little running. I did wake quite a few times this morning. I was excited/nervous, kind of like the first day of school. I wasn't tired when I woke though. In attempt to be well-rested, I did have to bypass the end of the Cards game. Fortunately I woke to good news from the text messages I got. Although, some number I don't know texted me.....weird. Atleast they were a Cards fan. In regards to the stress though, all is good now, so no worries.

I survived the 21 mile trot. Really, once you get past 17 it's all the same. The legs were tired and achy but my mind felt good. I could have run 5.2 more miles but only if I had to; I was totally okay stopping. What made this run so challenging? The cityscape. We had to stop at quite a few stop lights. At first they were welcomed but by the end, stopping meant we had to restart. That got tougher and tougher as the mileage got higher. Oh and those crazy sidewalks. Beware of uneven sidewalks and random holes. That could have really been disasterous. From what I heard about last training session's run, this one went much more smoothly. No one got lost and no one face planted. Win.

All in all I have to say I feel pretty good going in to the taper period. My body is tired but it doesn't hurt. However, as I type that statement, I sit with ice on my legs and downed 3 ibuprofen. :) But in all seriousness. I think I can do this. I hope I can do this. Remember this isn't just for me- this is for all of our loved ones who have fought, are currently fighting, and unfortunately will have to fight cancer. Little Lou was definitely on my mind this morning during my run. I know he would be proud of my efforts. I wasn't able to talk to him over the past few days, so I passed the message on to my parents to let him know that I ran 21 miles for him this morning. Doing this for someone else makes it much easier to do something of this magnitude.

Well I need to jet and start my afternoon/evening activites. As soon as I have pics I will post them.

Thanks to the Ball clan for sending a donation to the ACS! That was a nice e-mail to see after finishing this long run; it just brought everything full circle :)