“It’s the BIG ONE tomorrow!” read Tiffany’s Saturday night reminder e-mail.  “What time are we meeting?”

Realizing it would take approximately 4 hours to run 20 miles, 6:00 a.m. seemed like a reasonable starting time.

At the start of our run, a thick blanket of fog hung in the dark morning air, which it made it difficult to see anything, particularly the cars to avoid as we ran in the road.  Condensation saturated our eyelashes and caused us to periodically wipe away our fog tears.

Besides Lori, Tiffany and I, there were no other runners this morning, except for the deer.  I suppose other runners don’t like thick fog, but the deer enjoy frolicking through it.  And yes, we did sing again.

Last week on the way to the Moms on the Go Christmas party, Lori said she spotted three female runners running along our usual route, who looked similar to us.  It seemed odd to Lori that we’ve never bumped into these other runners. 

I replied, “That’s because they are the Bizzaro World Us.”

After Lori finished 12 miles, we parted our ways and Tiffany and I continued on our Big 20 mile path.  Running on the road seems to be one of our saving graces when getting into the double digits.  I even prefer running on grass rather than the sidewalk.

When Lori ran with us, our average pace sat at 12 minute miles.  Tiffany and I kept a steady pace at 10 minute miles.

At 14 miles we stopped for a power bar and Gatorade break walk, which carried us through the remaining distance.  I didn’t hit any walls and felt pretty good during the entire run.  At the end of my run, I could still walk.  There was no need to crawl home or hitch a ride from a neighbor.  Plus, I could climb the stairs in my home without any agonizing pain.

End Time: 4:20:42  (Not too shabby!)

Even walking at water breaks and stopping to stretch occasionally, I was pleased with my BIG 20 finish time.  Like Tiffany said, “Some people can’t even walk 20 miles!”