Score! 18 down.

Very happy to have had a good run this morning.  I was thinking it was going to be insanely tough.

8 miles easy, 6 miles marathon pace and/or HR zone 3, and then 4 miles easy. 

The marathon pace part was hard.  Very, very hard.  But I did it.  And felt pretty good, and my heart rate wasn't maxing out zone 3 at any point.  And going 8 more miles wouldn't have necessarily been fun or fast, but it would have been possible I think. 

This was very different for me.  First, in no prior marathon training season have I run 18 miles more than 2 months before race day.  Second, in no prior marathon training season have I run race pace for this many miles on a long run this early.  I hope this yields great results! 

But now I'm fading.  I've been home for less than an hour I think.  I drank my recovery drink before I got home, and then had an English muffin with pepper jack cheese to tide me over while I made breakfast.  And I think my eyes were bigger than my stomach.  I made an insanely huge portion of oatmeal -- probably 3 or 4 servings -- mixed with pumpkin pie filling, raisins, cinnamon and brown sugar.  I used whole milk to make it (very rare for me, I usually use light soy or skim) (and actually, I most often eat oatmeal before a long run, so then I make it with water since dairy is not a good idea for me (or most other runners actually) before a long run). 

I'm starting to feel a little bleh from eating so much and I still have about 5 big bites left in the bowl.

One weird thing about me is that I'm very strange about wasting food.  Like I HATE doing it.  More than almost anyone I know.  We had clean plate rules growing up, but generally my parents were pretty reasonable.  I didn't get strange about it until my first trip to Africa in 2000.  When I got back from that trip, not only did I insist on either cleaning my plate or boxing up the remaining food (regardless of how little it was sometimes), but I was actually very disturbed to see anyone else wasting food too -- I never went so far as to get a stranger's food boxed up, but at that time, I either insisted my friends take their remaining food home with them or I'd take it myself.  Waste makes me sad when some people have so little.  Thankfully I'm not quite so neurotic anymore.  But if I really am too full to finish this big @ss bowl of oatmeal, I'll stick it in the fridge and eat it later.

Anyway, so happy not to have a big agenda today.  I'm thinking Law & Order marathon, naps, and then some cooking before the game tonight!  Neither of us care about football at all, but I like funny commercials!