10 Miles and a Mustard Miracle

Last night my husband, who is in the MBA program at BYU, says this to me, "I think I already told you this but I have a group meeting tomorrow at school at 10:30." Um actually no Babe, you didn't mention that. That's why I wasn't able to make the group run this morning. *SIGH* But, I did do it on my own. And I actually had a really great run.

I started out from my house and headed for the Provo River Trail. It is just over 2 miles to get there. Then I headed towards the Canyon. I always go the other way to avoid running up the canyon, but today I decided I could use some hillage. When I got the the canyon, I needed to run 1.75 miles up it. I was nervous, but running up the canyon was not what I thought it was. It was very very gradual. Nothing huge. I couldn't help but thinking how much Jen would love it because is had little yellow and white lines just like a road, and instead of dodging cars, she could just dodge bicylces. :) And it was BEAUTIFUL! So I got to 5 miles and turned around. I love doing out and backs. There's something so great about turning around and knowing you are more than half way done. I was at 53 minutes and some change. So I get headed back down, which was AWESOME. Who doesn't love running downhill? Then a problem occurred. I started getting a major cramp in my right calf. YIKES. All I could think of was that I was 4.35 miles from home. A long way to run with a cramp in my calf. However, I remembered a little nifty trick my older brother taught me. Apparently when you have a muscle cramp,a little mustard will cure it. I was running with my fanny pack(it doesn't look like a 1980 fanny pack, it's a running one that is way cuter) and it had mustard packs still in it from when I ran the Pocotello marathon back in Aug. I had never had to use them before. So I stopped, stretched for a minute and downed 1 mustard pack. And before I even began running again, it was like I had never even had a cramp. A little mustard miracle! I was feeling great! When I got back out to the mouth of the canyon I stopped at the subway to use the facilities, buy a gatorade, down a gel pack and then I continued on my way. I was feeling so good that I sped up. I ran mile 9 at about a 9:30 pace and the final mile in under 9 minutes. My second five miles I ran in about 48 minutes. Crazy right! It was a good run for me. Hopefully next week will be the same.

And I did take a couple of pics when I got home, but they were nasty. I have learned to only take before pictures! (Or at least have some makeup on when I start the run. )

So how were your runs today????