I Am Back!!!!!!! Unicorn Pace!

It seems like so long ago.

I qualified for the Boston Marathon back in February this year. Since that, a lot of shitty things happened in my life.

And I say this a lot, I have said it all summer, I miss that girl. I have not felt like her in a long time. I look at those pictures and remember feeling free and alive. That day I felt unstoppable and like a running machine. In fact I look at that picture every time I check my ticker on my iPhone to see how many days until my 50 mile race:

(Yes that is correct, DAMN that race is in 68 days!)

So this weekend my ultra training plan called for 28 miles. I knew it would be a challenge getting them in with peanut and some things we had going on. But I was determined to try my hardest to get them done. Saturday I ended up doing 6 miles of hard hill repeats near my sisters house while peanut played with my niece and nephew. That was good. Then on Sunday I headed to the Lexington bike path to do my left over miles of 22...

I ran out of time so I set out kind of late to do my run. I started at a solid 9 min per mile pace and quickly realized I would not finish my run if I kept at it that slow. I decided to try and ease my body into a faster routine. Let's just say mile 2 was a 8:30ish and mile 3 was 8:20ish and then it hit me.

I began to feel good and strong so I thought I would push for 8 minute miles. Much to my surprise I began knocking off miles at sub 8 minute per mile paces!!! I kept looking down at my Garmin in awe and wonder at how it was even possible to be running this fast since only being back a short time.

I decided not to question it too much and just closed my eyes and enjoyed it. I quickly realized I was at unicorn pace. What is unicorn pace you ask? Hehe that's my code word for BQ pace! I have all this Boston marathon gear and peanut loves it because of the big unicorn logo. So now for us the Boston marathon is known as the unicorn race hehe.

So I was at unicorn pace for a majority of my 22 miler. You know at one point about 10 miles in I had this big smile on my face and I got the chills. I could not believe how fast I was running, but mostly I could not believe how physically good I felt. Those chills came over me a few times and each time I could feel my smile getting bigger and bigger.

I was truly enjoying myself like I did in Hyannis back in February. I just kept singing and plugging away at those miles. I looked down at my watch and was shocked that I would finish all 22 miles in 3 hours!

After the run I got terribly sick. Now I know this is not ideal but my stomach was in a revolution lol. I do not think it likes being in such a state of intense running LOL! but I will say this. This run was so worth it. For me being able to feel like in truly back in shape and getting ready to get another BQ this fall will be nice!