Week # 7 Day Four 12 mile run

10/02/10 . I met up with James at 5:30 in the morning for this run. We met at Boulder Beach campground at Lake Mead. We decided to do part of the Hoover Dam 1/2 marathon course. This was also the first time using my hydration pack. Its like a Camelback, but I got the $19 Walmart version.lol. It did the job. We started out in the darkness at a nice easy pace. We kept checking with each other to see if the pace was ok. We started on a paved trail, and kept following it until we got a part where the trail that we were on lead to a gate, and the other way lead to another trail. We chose the wrong way, which made us go up hills, and stairs, across the Hacienda casino parking lot, and back to the original trail. If we had gone through the gate it would've led us right to the tunnels we were wanting to see. We just took the long way around. We made it to the Railroad tunnels. They were pretty neat. It was so dark inside of them, but luckily there weren't any rattlesnakes sunning themselves in front of the tunnels like some people have sighted. Or so I read online. lol. After the tunnels we kept going until we went past some buildings and finally ended up at a gate that said No Access. There was nowhere else to go, so we had to turn around. I used the Hammer Gel sample that I had gotten in my bag for the ET run about an hour into the run. It was pretty good. Getting the package open wasnt easy though. We were able to talk to each other during the run, but on the way back we both kind of just zoned out for a few miles. Then as we got to 2 miles left, our legs were starting to shut down. We kept saying " where's the damn sign for the campground ? ". We didnt know how far we had gone, James' GPS could not get a signal. It was such a struggle to keep running. If I had stopped at all I dont think I would've been able to start running again. Our knees were killing us, and we just wanted it to be over. We finally saw where we had started, and ended it. Our time was 2 hours and 16 minutes. James mapped it when he got home and it ended up being 11.5 miles. So we were 1/2 a mile short. Our pace was 11:50 a mile. I thought we had done better than that, but oh well. When we stopped it felt like we were walking bowlegged. It was crazy. We had a gatorade by our cars, and then made our way home. I was glad it was just a 10 minute drive for me. : ) That night I had to go to a baby shower/going away party for one of my coworkers. It was hard to walk. The outside of my left knee was killing me, and my legs were so sore in general. Sunday I rested.