Trixie sent me a snail finger puppet to help remind me I need to go slow and steady, my plans were to go one hour run then have my garmin vibrate at me to run 5 min walk 1 minute, that will be my strategy for the 50 miler in 3 weeks except I will walk the big uphills and run the downs and flat-dont think I would want to waste a walk break for a downhill? So yesterday I went to the forest and ran pretty fast for that course to see about tiring my legs out better for todays run and I think I succeeded :-) My plan didnt work and I was averaging about a 10:20 pace up to mile 15 and Sallie the Snail reminded me I was suppose to start walking an hour and 45 min ago so this is where I started this. I was already getting tired and actually the run/walk was a little more painful then just running but I knew recovery time would be much better in the days to come if i stuck with it. I also changed socks and wore my older thin socks i use to do tri's in because my toes have been blistering after every long run-another thing I wont do- my feet actually hurt this time-just like I remember them hurting in all Ironmans and all other marathons so I will go back to the little bit thicker sock for sure. Sallie and I kept this pace up and it brought my overall time down to about a 11 min mile so that was good. My plan was also to try to drag it out to a 5 hour marathon and I was very close. A 4:55 and it even won me 3rd in my age group! We got to about mile 20 or so and I had to go the bathroom, I had Sallie stuck in the front part of my pants so I could easily take her out and talk to her or have a photo with her anytime, when I got to the porta potty I wanted to hurry in and hurry out and I actually didnt think about Sallie until it was too late, she decided to try to swim, she did however land on a nice brown raft but I wasnt going to try to save her. After the race I put my calf compression sleeves on and headed home, about an 1:30 drive. I have had a couple spasm in my legs on the trip home so I think tomorrow Im not going to teach spin class and just chill out till i work in the afternoon.