The week of Aug 13-Aug 19

Sunday: 6 miles R (with Danielle)
Monday: 6.5 miles R
Tuesday: 6 miles R / 8 miles T (with Danielle)
Wednesday: 6 miles R
Thursday: 6 miles R / 8.5 T (with Danielle)
Friday: 0
Saturday: 14 miles T (with Danielle)

Total Weekly: 61 miles running (36.5 with Danielle)

(R = Road, T = Trail, E = Elliptical, G = Grass)

Wow! I'm tapering and Danielle just ran her biggest week of her young life!!! She's been gradually building up and this week put in 40.5 mile with a long run of 14 miles today with the Wilderness Lake bunch. Her previous longest was the 9.6 Lake Youngs loop which she's run twice.

She told me she wanted to run long today but also wanted to get home early so that she could hang out with her boyfriend. I asked how far and she came up with 14 miles (not sure where that came from). So, hey, the Wilderness Lake folks meet at 7:30 am and run 14 miles. She's up for it so we join them. Well, we started at the same time as they did anyway. I monitored her up to 5 miles, where she was still looking strong/happy. I said, "10 miler if we turn now." No VERBAL answer ... she just kept running. At 6 miles, "Are we going to the end?" to which she responds simply, "Yes!" I have to mention that we were both wearing our iPods. I thought it would be a good idea for her to have another distraction - I think it helped. We were a half mile out when we saw the group on the return trip. At the turn-around, we were at 1:04; just a bit over 9 minute pace. We stopped to take a potty break and got right back into it. Danielle wanted to stop and stretch a bit a mile 10, which made me nervous. I figured that was a sign that we would be stopping to walk-jog from here on out. The stop was short and we continued; mile 11 - still good; mile 12 - still good. At this point, there is a short climb but tough enough that one would probably walk. I jogged up to the top and stopped to wait for Danielle who was ... she was running. Surprised but not wanting to let on, I started running again. The last part of this run is slightly uphill but we wore on all the way to the finish without stopping.

As I said, Wow! There is something definitely wrong with that girl. She actually seemed like she enjoyed herself. The run back was slower, about a 9:30 pace. But the important thing is that we ran the whole way ... no walking. Well, that just made my week. She'll be sore tomorrow and has some bragging rights to go along with it.

One more week ... CCC 100.