Saturday (10/15) was my longest long run yet at 12 miles and given that ever run thus far has been very different I was not sure what to expect. I experimented a little bit by having an english muffin and half a glass of OJ at home. My thinking was to get the body started with some easy to digest sugars and carbs. I think the experiment paid off since I felt good during the run and I was not that hungry afterwards, so this might be something I will try again for the next saturday run.

We went 12 miles down the Arizona canal, which was surprisingly busy with plenty of walkers and even teams training. The nice benefit to the other teams being out there was the increase of aid stations throughout the route. We carried our own water, something I am a little more comfortable doing, but it was nice to know the stations were there just in case. I ended up with a time of 1:36:56 which is about 8:04 minutes per mile.

This coming saturday we back down a little bit and go 10 miles, this marks the end of what I am calling the first stage of our training. This is our 6th week (out of 18) so I am basically breaking down the program into 3 stages. During the second stage we start putting up more miles during the week, as well as longer saturday runs. The third and final stage gives us the 2 20-mile runs before tapering down for race day. I set out to run ~ 8:00 miles and after 12 miles I am very excited to be on target and more importantly that I have managed to stay injury-free.