Author: devonpass

1. Tonight’s run.

Seattle has SO MUCH AIR to breathe compared to Colorado!!! Sea-level lungs are happy lungs!

2. Dr. Harvey Longback.

Dr. Longback is a Bassador — that’s a Basset/labrador mix — with whom Aaron and I were roommates for two days in Boulder (I highly recommend booking a room in this house on Airbnb if you ever visit!).

Aaron doesn’t like dogs that much (the horror!!!), but even he had a soft spot for Harvey. He made me really, really, really want a dog.

We watched the rain together. Aww.

3. I registered for the Eugene Marathon.

Umm… yeah. I tend to register for future marathons while I’m already in the middle of training for a marathon, and then right after I run that marathon, I’m like, “WHY DID I PAY MONEY FOR ANOTHER FOUR HOURS OF HELL.”

It’s a problem.

But, it’s Eugene — iconic, you know — and the race was moved from April to July, so I don’t have to train through the winter for it. Seriously, I am taking a training break after Chicago and becoming a gym rat hamster for the winter. Then I’ll train for Eugene, run the damn thing, and then take another break for the home stretch of wedding planning and actually getting married.

4. Speaking of getting married…

Last night, I searched Etsy for “bicycle cake toppers” on a whim, and look what appeared in the search results:

Um, WHAT. I’ll be damned if that is not the spitting image of Aaron and me (but more Aaron) with Voldemort non-noses.

Right? RIGHT??

The cake topper was custom-made for another couple, so clearly we have some doppelgangers tandem-biking around somewhere on this planet. Make that doppelgangers who shelled out $205 for a cake topper.

5. More pictures from Colorado? Oh, if you insist.

Mid-run river selfie. Acceptable because nature.

Beaver Lake hike. I perfected my squat on this adventure, not because of my devotion to good athletic form, but because of my desire to not pee on my shoes.

I wear the pants (and feathered caps) in this relationship.

6. Aaron is the best man…

…in his best friend’s wedding on Saturday. I have a 22-mile run on Sunday. I will wear heels and dance (but not drink) anyway, because YOLO and all that.

7. Speaking of that…

Direct, unprovoked quote from Aaron in Colorado: “I think the girl wearing Juicy sweatpants with a denim jacket is taking YOLO a little too seriously.”

OMG.

The end.

Helllllloooo! Aaron and I are lounging at the Denver airport, awaiting our flight to Seattle. We missed all the flooding, thank goodness, and had a great trip!

I’ll start off by humblebragging about the fact that I did every one of my Chicago Marathon training runs and didn’t skip a single mile!!! That’s five runs for a total of 35 miles, people.

It was easy to fit them in because Aaron was off doing his mountain-biking thing every morning, so I had plenty of time to do my running thing. Then we’d join forces to eat breakfast, sight-see, hike, etc. Fitness first, yo!

BOULDER

Monday:

On my first run in Boulder, I was blown away by the incredible network of paved, multi-use paths that run all over the city. I didn’t even have to wait at stoplights because all the paths feature underpasses that allow you to continue running/biking uninterrupted. You pretty much don’t have to have a car in Boulder if you don’t want one!

I ran five glorious miles:

Did you know that Kara Goucher went to the University of Colorado and probably ran on these same trails?? That was a cool thought during this run. 🙂

And later, we went for an easy hike (that ended in a killer city view) with Aaron’s stepsister, Erin, who lives in Boulder.

Aaron Pass and Erin Pass — it never gets old!

Tuesday:

Nothing like a family of deer crossing the path to remind you that you’re in Colorado! In Washington, I’ll occasionally see a deer out in the woody suburbs, but this sighting happened right in the heart of Boulder. Pretty cool.

Another fiver:

This run was very gray and a bit rainy — a sign of things to come. The rest of the day was extremely wet and stormy, but luckily we headed two hours away in the afternoon and weren’t impacted by the flooding. (Erin is OK, too!)

AVON

Wednesday:

We spent the rest of our trip in Avon, a town just outside of Vail. Thanks to a member of Aaron’s family who is in the hotel biz, we stayed at a beautiful resort that overlooked mountains and the Eagle River.

An awesome, paved trail ran right between the resort and the river, so it hosted my remaining three runs and spoiled me with spectacular views.

OMFG. Not bad, Colorado!!!

One last fiver:

I was surprised that I ran this one a tiny bit faster than my Boulder runs, considering that Boulder’s elevation is 5,200 ft. and Avon’s is 7,400 ft. (For reference, in Seattle, I usually run between 0 ft. and 200 ft. of elevation!!)

Yes, it was hard to run at such high elevation, and yes, I drank a shit-ton of Nuun to help me power through!

We also went for a little 3.5-mile hike that, at one point, led us through a magical grove of aspen trees. So pretty.

Thursday:

Rest day! But instead of resting, let’s go for a 6-mile hike.

We did the moderately difficult hike to Beaver Lake, then circumvented the lake on a trail that supposedly existed (?) but appeared to be trashed by rock slides in various places. Cue fun rock-scrambling action.

I am also too much of a chicken to walk across a log over ankle-deep water and decided to bear-crawl instead. SURVIVAL TACTICS.

Later, we recovered in the infinity hot tub. Yes.

Friday:

Did an 8-miler. Not much to say about this one, other than I stopped at this 9/11 memorial about halfway through and got some serious dust in my eyes.

This year, I didn’t have the typical sads that I usually have on the anniversary of 9/11 since I was in vacation mode, but unexpectedly finding this memorial a few days later allowed me to feel all those feels.

This run was a little tougher. Hard to breathe that thin air. But it was nothing compared to my long run…

Saturday:

Stupid, sucky, horrible run of horribleness. Awful, awful, awful. Make it go away and never come back.

Hey, pretty river!

I was hoping to run 6 miles out along the trail and 6 miles back, but the trail is only like 4.5 miles long, so I was stuck doing that awkward “where can I go??” thing where I circled around the town of Edwards before I could head back toward the resort. It was gray and cold and lightly raining. My gels were hard to choke down. It was just a mess.

BUT I did it, and I rejoiced when I found a foam roller at the resort’s fitness center and rolled out 35 miles’ worth of Colorado running tightness.

AND THEN Aaron and I rejoiced at Oktoberfest in Vail. Prost!!

The perfect way to recover from a long run. 🙂

And that brings us to right now, at the airport. Our flight is about to board… see you back in Seattle!

Oh yes, I said the FIRST 20-miler. There will be a second in two weeks. Or maybe I’ll make it a 22-miler? I know I can run the shit out of 20 miles in a marathon (*cough* Seattle Rock ‘n’ Roll *cough*), but it’s kinda definitely the last 6.2 miles that really matter!

My goal for this run was to do the first 10 miles between 9:30 and 9:45 pace, and the last 10 between 9:15 and 9:30.

NAILED IT.

First 10: 1:35:42 (9:34 pace)
Last 10: 1:34:21 (9:26 pace)

The deets:

Notice my fastest mile was 19, due to the fact that there was a DACHSHUND (wiener dog) CONVENTION at Green Lake and there were like 50 wiener dogs all walking around in one spot. Literally, this is a real thing, and that is a link to a blog post about the original Green Lake wiener dog convention in 2011.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE. There was a friggin’ Westie convention happening, too!!!

So, imagine you’ve been running for three hours, and you’re pretty tired and ready to be done. Then you encounter a GANG OF WIENER DOGS, followed by a GANG OF WESTIES, and your mind cannot compute what your eyes are seeing. Is it real? Is it a mirage? Did someone spike my Nuun with LSD?

What’s more, the two gangs were about to collide! I was picturing some real West Side Story shit!

Long story long, I got really excited about all the dogs and ran fast.

Zoe could not meet up with me after all, but that was totally fine because I was A-OK physically and mentally through this whole run. My legs were super-tired and dragging at the beginning, but I somehow picked up energy and speed the more I ran. That is like… the opposite of logic. But I won’t question it!

I’ve gotten really sick of my chocolate Clif shots lately, so I bought a variety of Gu flavors to try. Probably not the best idea to try a completely different brand of gel and new flavors on a 20-miler, but I don’t even pretend to make good decisions.

I had the vanilla bean at mile 4.5 (tasty, but very sweet), an unpictured chocolate outrage at mile 9 (tastier than the Clif chocolate), the mint chocolate at mile 13.5 (made my stomach feel iffy for about a minute, then I was fine), and never ate the salted caramel. We shall dance another day.

The verdict? Gu has a thinner consistency that makes it much easier to get down than Clif Shots. I think it’s time for me to switch! Plus, I liked having a variety of flavors on such a long run rather than eating the same flavor over and over. Marathon strategy, perhaps?

Also, I never listen to music while running, but I actually found myself singing to myself (in my brain) during this run. I mentally sang everything from John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads to Katy Perry’s Roar. I’ve been on a big John Denver kick lately; I grew up listening to him, as my mom is a big fan, so it’s not THAT random. Whatever works, right?

While I was running running running, Aaron was relaying! He crushed the mountain bike leg of the Iron Horse Relay, and his team — which I believe was called Black Thunder? ha! — finished SECOND overall!

From left to right: the trail runner, the kayaker, the cute one that I am marrying, the road runner, and the road cyclist. 

Black Thunder actually held the lead for most of the race, but the road runner of the second-place team absolutely crushed the final leg with a 5:XX pace and won the whole thing!

So, Aaron and I are both done with pretty intense athletic events and are now officially on vacation! We leave for Colorado first thing tomorrow morning.

The mountains are calling, and I must go!

I have a new running buddy / partner in sweat!

Karen, who reads my blog for reasons I have not yet discovered, emailed me about a month ago after I posted about running Green Lake in my bright yellow Lululemon shirt. She had run by me that morning! She was training for the Portland Marathon on Oct. 6, and did I want to run together sometime?

Heck. Yes.

So we met up for our first run two weeks ago and ran just over eight miles together. It was really fun to make a new friend completely out of the blue and get to know her through running and chatting!

Blue moon sunrise, ya’ll.

We intended to run together again last week, but I called her at 4:45 a.m. (we planned to meet at 5:15) and was like “NOPE” because it was absolutely pouring rain. I can handle darkness, and I can handle rain, but I can’t yet justify running in the darkness AND the rain when I have the opportunity to run in the daylight after work instead (which is totally what I did).

Alas, our schedules did not line up again until yesterday morning, with eight miles on tap for me and 17 miles for Karen. That’s 17 MILES BEFORE WORK ON A FRIDAY. WHAT.

Again, we met at 5:15, but this time, the sun didn’t rise during our run. It was still fairly dark when I finished (and she kept going) at 6:30 because the sun doesn’t officially rise until 6:35. Yayyy for running buddies who make it safer for each other to run in the morning!

Karen is really fast, with years and years of cross-country and track under her belt, but she’s doing her marathon training at an easier pace that I can hang with. (I think she holds back a bit for the miles she runs with me, but that’s cool! Thanks, Karen!)

She is super-cute and we have lots in common, with just enough differences to make our conversations interesting. The miles fly by as we chat, which is fantastic, and I’m already looking forward to our next run.

Today, Karen is off backpacking with her boyfriend, and I have 20 miles to run. Thankfully Zoe (of Nuun and Labor Day Half Marathon fame) is going to run with me for six miles near the end! Score!

Do you like how I went from zero running buddies to ALL THE RUNNING BUDDIES?? Yeah, I do, too.

OK. Time to stop run-crastinating. 20, here I come!

(My Hood to Coast recap is still in the works… yeah, I know.)

Hello, dreary, gray, gloomy, rainy REST DAY!!!

It’s generally advisable to take a rest day (or multiple — one for every mile) after a race, and yet… I did not do that. Don’t be like me.

On Tuesday, my legs felt… fine. Like no half-marathon ever happened. I stood at my standing desk most of the day and waited for muscle pain or tightness or fatigue to creep it, but it never did. So I scrapped my loose plans for a massage (I’m hoarding a gift card until the optimal opportunity arrises) and went for a five-mile recovery run instead.

I ran the outer loop of Green Lake, which is gravel/dirt rather than a paved trail, to keep my pace casual. I honestly just needed a good sweat to rid myself of any lingering disappointment after the half-marathon.

I know 2:05:43 is not, by any means, a time to be ashamed of! But the fact that it’s two minutes slower than my very first half and 10 minutes slower than my PR, plus the way it went down — basically nine miles of solid running, and then a walkathon for miles 10-13 — well, let’s just say I know I could have done better.

And I’ll save all the negative thoughts I had during this race for the official recap. GET. EXCITED.

Last night, I had eight miles on my Chicago Marathon training plan, but I cut it down to five because otherwise I’d end up running 54 miles this week, which is kind of crazy given that I’ve only run 29 and 23 miles in the past two weeks. So 51 miles is… somehow… better?

Fun numbers happen when you run a half-marathon and then need to run a 20-miler in the same week. I could delay the 20-miler, but then I’d be running it at elevation in Colorado, so NOPE.

Back to last night:

With a side of awesome sunset:

Time to go to work. I kind of love rainy days because being at work, sheltered from all the crappy rain, is actually kind of nice and cozy. Just add a hot mug of tea.

Even if lightning strikes me on the way home tonight, I promise I will write part one (oh yes, multiple parts) of my Hood to Coast recap and post it either late tonight or tomorrow morning!

My mom says she’s sick of refreshing my blog for updates… I get “asks” seeing if I’m OK… and someone actually used the contact form on Aaron’s website to inquire about my well-being.

Sorry for disappearing! Hood to Coast was a really intense, action-packed experience that I’ve been meaning to blog about, but I really need to sit down and devote a few hours to doing it justice. I’ve been putting it off, plain and simple.

But… it was AWESOME!

I was fortunate to get to know so many amazing runners — including my wonderful van-mates, pictured above — and we all made it to Seaside happy, healthy, and drunk on relay endorphins. I ran faster than I ever have before (like, 7:XX miles — whoa). And Nuun spoiled us all to death for five straight days. 

Seriously, as amazing as Nuun the product is, the people who make up Nuun the company are a hundred times more so.

Today I ran a half-marathon “for fun” that really wasn’t much fun at all. Just like two years ago, the Labor Day Half was hellishly hot (who starts a half at 9 a.m.??) and I simply wasn’t prepared to run my best race. What began as a PR attempt completely crumbled after nine miles to exhaustion, nausea, extensive walking, and general bummed-out-ness.

Then, Megan and Zoe — Nuun employees who organized/ran Hood to Coast and made the whole experience as incredible as it was — caught up to me in the final mile and encouraged me to run to the finish with them.

We were all hurting and not caring about our times at that point, but I was the one who had to walk due to a pesky cramp. I told them to go ahead, but they walked with me for a bit, and we continued on to run to the finish line together.

This was my slowest half ever — a full 10 minutes slower than my PR — but with every hour that passes, I forget a little bit of the misery of miles 10 through 13 and remember more vividly the awesomeness of the last 0.1.

As a mostly solo runner, I’ve learned in this last week how wonderful it feels to team up with fellow runners to accomplish something great, whether it’s a 200-mile relay across Oregon or the final mile of a half-marathon.

I like to depend on myself for most things, but sometimes, we all need somebody to lean on.

Big thanks to my HTC teammates, plus Megan and Zoe, for being my somebodies.

More to come on all this soon — I promise! Aaron and I just finished the first season of Orange is the New Black, which was the biggest free-time-suck EVER. (But seriously, start watching it if you haven’t already!)

Time for bed now. Night!

The Hood to Coast relay is this Friday and Saturday, but the runners on Nuun’s three teams — Watermelon, Lemonade, and Cherry Limeade — are arriving in Seattle TODAY!!!

I’m runner #12 of 12 on team Watermelon, which means I get to run across the finish line on the beach in Seaside, Oregon! That makes me The Closer, according to this t-shirt:

“This is it — the last leg. If you want to keep going after this, you’re going to have to swim with the sharks. What awaits this runner? An easy three in Portland, an idyllic five along the Nehalem River in Mist (NOT from the German, BTW), and a sinuous downhill into Seaside and onto the beach for the big finish. Cue the showers of glory and warm leftover energy drink.”

I’m. SO. Excited! I painted my damn nails and everything.

Here are the combined stats of the three legs of the relay that I’ll run: 

– 13.22 miles
– Ranks 12th in mileage
– Ranks 12th in overall difficulty

That’s right, kids: I get to run the easiest legs of the race AND experience the glory of crossing the finish line on my final leg!

Originally, my three legs added up to just over 16 miles and my mileage/difficulty ratings were more middle-of-the-pack, but my first exchange had to be rerouted due to construction in Portland and runner #1 took on those three miles.

I ain’t mad. I didn’t go out of my way to choose the easiest position — it just happened to transpire that way — so I will take it and enjoy it!

I’ll be running legs 12, 24, and 36.

Here’s a closer look at ‘em:

My first leg: Leg 12

3.07 miles — rated “easy.” Mostly flat with a few rolling hills, trail and paved city streets. My predicted start time is between 9:45 p.m. on Friday (based on HTC’s calculations using my teammates’ 10K pace). A nice, short run to kick things off!

My second leg: Leg 24

4.92 miles — rated “easy.” Flat terrain along the Nehalem River and through pastoral setting on Hwy 47 and Hwy 202. My predicted start time is 7:17 a.m. on Saturday. Sounds pretty peaceful and uneventful!

My third leg: Leg 36

5.23 miles — rated “moderate.” Challenging and steep downhills on winding paved roads to finish on sand. My predicted start time is 4:15 p.m. on Saturday. This will be the most difficult leg physically, but also because I’ll be exhausted! I imagine I’ll be on that crazy endorphin high that you get when you haven’t slept but are doing something so awesome that it doesn’t even matter.

Tonight after work, I’ll meet up with all the ladies who have arrived so far and start getting to know them! I’m taking Thursday off so I can participate in all the activities Nuun has planned for us, including a visit to the Oiselle headquarters, an easy run around Green Lake, riding the Duck (which I’ve always wanted to do!!), decorating our vans, and more.

Psst… I’m WAY more nervous about meeting the other runners than I am about running the race! I’m sure everybody will be lovely and we’ll have tons of fun, but it feels like the first day of school! 🙂

I’ll be posting Tumblr updates as I can, but I’ll just have my phone — no laptop — so extensive recaps won’t happen until after the race. I’ll be tweeting up a storm (@devonamills) and Instagramming my face off (devonamills), so feel free to follow along there, too!

Ba-boom.

There happens to be an excellent cycling/running trail that goes from Seattle to Woodinville called the Burke-Gilman trail, so it was really convenient to run from the city I currently live in to my hometown. I miiiight have done this run just to be able to post the GPS screenshot on Facebook and impress/freak out all the people who know how far this is in real life.

It’s 17 miles (obviously). The whole trail runs about 27 miles, which would be quite convenient for running a marathon, don’t you think?

Perhaps another time. Yesterday, I stuck with 17.

I’m very happy that I maintained a relatively steady pace and was able to pick it up from mile 11 on! And mile 17 = 8:57 pace, woo-hoo!

I was nervous about this run because, even though I’ve run 17 miles several times now, I’m not familiar with the locations of drinking fountains and restrooms along this route. I like to have those places memorized and highly accessible. But, since the Burke-Gilman is so popular, there were lovely restrooms and drinking fountains available when I needed them, and I was juuuuust fine.

My first stop was less than three miles in at University Village (an outdoor mall). Don’t you hate it when you pee before leaving the house, but inexplicably have to pee again as soon as you start running??

Just outside of UVillage, a bunch of extremely fit and fast-looking women ran by me going the opposite direction. From the logos and birds on their clothes, I could tell they were Oiselle employees and/or team runners. I was too shy to say hello or anything, but perhaps I will meet some of them on Thursday when I visit Oiselle HQ with the Nuun Hood to Coast teams!

My second stop was 7.25 miles in at Matthews Beach Park — more to snap this view than to fill my water bottles, but I did that, too.

Lookin’ fine, Lake Washington!

I also got really excited at the 10-mile mark when I left the Seattle city limits.

Much of the Burke-Gilman is how you see it here: green and shady. However, after this point, I pretty much lost the shade and had to run in full sun. The shirt came off at mile 11 because it was completely sweat-soaked and useless. No shame!

Log Boom Park in Kenmore was a lovely place to refill/re-Nuun my water bottles, take a short shade break, and eat the rest of a Larabar that I’d started eating just before running.

Shortly after that, I ran into a Nuun-mobile parked right along the trail! It was unmanned, but luckily I had plenty of my favorite flavor — watermelon — to keep me going.

The miles just flew by on this run. I’ve biked this route but never run it, so there were all kinds of new-ish sights to hold my interest along the way. Every time I looked at my watch, it seemed like another mile had just magically ticked by.

My faster final mile was due to a combination of my legs still feeling strong and just wanting to be done/get out of the hot sun ASAP! My lovely mom was waiting for my at my final destination: Wilmot Gateway Park in downtown Woodinville.

We look a bit alike, huh??

We went straight to Panera, where we picked up lunch for everyone, then headed home to give the boys a break from building the workshop. Aaron, Don (my mom’s fiance), and Brandon (my brother) did a great job putting up the roof this weekend. Ta-daaaa!

The makings of a very eclectic boy band.

It was a great and very busy weekend! This week will be even busier, with Hood to Coast activities starting Wednesday night and the actual relay happening Friday and Saturday.

Bring. It. ON!

I owe you a big catch-up post about this week! Let’s go real fast-like.

Saturday, post-migraine:

I rallied big-time after spending all afternoon on the pain train. Aaron and I had an extremely delicious dinner out at a Greek restaurant, and then celebrated his co-worker’s birthday at a bar. I had a beer and a half and was in bed by 10:30. Woo-hoo!!!

Sunday:

I woke up at 5 a.m. to fit in my 14-mile long run. I felt… totally fine!

No residual effects from the migraine, apparently. This was extremely encouraging.

Aaron and I met with a wedding officiant later (hence why I got up so early), and he was approximately 20 years older than the photo of him on his website. Which is fine. But weird? He was a nice guy, and his style/values lined up with what we want for our ceremony, but I think we’ll meet with a few other officiants before we decide.

Monday:

I’m like 99% sure the migraine I had on Saturday was caused by the fact that I accidentally held my breath while doing push-ups, since the aura and headache came on immediately after I did that. And I Googled it, so it must be true.

I was hesitant about continuing with the push-up plan, but I really made sure to breathe correctly (in on the way down, out on the way up) and I got through the push-ups just fine without problems! So… just being smart can prevent crazy, painful things from happening to you? Good to know.

Tuesday:

I ran four miles in the a.m. Can’t remember anything significant about this run, other than that I’m starting to recognize other runners who also regularly hit Green Lake in the mornings. Oh hai guys, I’m one of you now!

Wednesday:

Behold, the glory of morning running.

8 miles with the sunrise for the win! This was a truly breathtaking run. I ❤ morning running (except for the waking-up part).

I also wore a fun new sweater to work, as it was a smidge chilly that day.

When I first saw this at J. Crew, I was like, “WOW, that is… a lot going on there.” Then I was like, “Hmm, I’ll try it on just for fun.” Then I was like, “Is it ugly? Is it cute? I’m not sure. But I think I like it.” I’m still not sure, but life is too short, so I own it now and y’all can just deal with it.

Thursday:

I tackled hill repeats for the first time in a while. 10 of ‘em. It was slow, but not too painful, BUT REALLY SWEATY because of the humidity.

Oh hey, see how my bright yellow shirt became purple? It turns out the yellow fabric reacts with some deodorants to turn the underarms of the shirt ORANGE. Not cute. So, I returned the yellow-with-orange-pits shirt and got purple instead. The Husky in me approves!

This run was slowwwww going because I don’t think I’ve done hill repeats since training for Seattle Rock ‘n Roll. I warmed up for a half-mile, did 10 repeats with a half-mile jog midway through, then ran a cool-down mile home. All the sweat.

Not sure why I sweat more on the left side than right? It’s a medical mystery.

FRIDAY

Rest day! Let’s mold our bodies into the couch while binge-watching Orange Is The New Black! Seriously, y’all need to start watching that, like, yesterday.

SATURDAY

I was up at 4:45 to run eight miles! The plan was to arrive at my mom’s house around 8:00 to help build the workshop, so Aaron and I both got up super-early to fit in our respective run/ride.

The awesome upside: Green Lake was EMPTY, and there was another gorgeous sunrise.

The geese know what’s up.

And the run was great, too!

A few days ago, I randomly signed up for a half-marathon that’s on Labor Day — aka two weeks from now! Mayyybe I’ll be able to PR? I ran my PR back in March: 1:55:22 — 8:48 pace. I’d like to think I can beat that, considering I ran 9.3 miles at 8:12 pace in May, but I haven’t exactly been training for speed lately. We’ll see! I’ll focus mostly on having fun.

And this epic recap brings me up to today!

SUNDAY

We’re heading back to my mom’s house again this morning, but Aaron is going to drop me off 17 miles away so I can run there. That’s not weird, right? I’d say it’s an efficient way to do a long run.

Once I’m finished, I’ll have run 41 miles this week. Yowza! And it feels like marathon training is JUST getting started.