I heart I.F.

I heart I.F. means I love Idaho Flatlands!! I knew Utah was full of rolling hills but never realized how flat other places could be. I did my 18 miler in Idaho Falls. It was wonderful!!! Flat, flat, and more flat. It was actually an enjoyable run. We went up there for the Tracy Family Reunion. Debbie and I went up the night before so we could wake up at the crack of dawn, run, and be ready to reminisce with the second cousins.
Funny story...the last couple weeks as I've been planning this run, I've been thinking about my Grandpa George that is buried up there. I asked my dad where he was buried and realized it was exactly 9 miles from our hotel. Perfect! I would run to the cemetery and back for a total of 18. I thought it would be neat to dedicate the run to my grandpa, give a little moment of silence for him once I got the cemetery, and all that. Well, Friday night, my sister and I are driving the route to make sure it's safe and check it out. As we are driving along Sunnyside Ave., we are telling each other that this is really close. We are wondering why dad always takes the long way. The other way takes like 20 minutes and we are only 5 minutes away. (All those old routes with farms on the side look the same at first glance.) As we are approaching the cemetery, we notice it's on a hill. Unless some great erosion happened, this is different. Maybe I don't remember it right. As we come to it, I realize this is not the same cemetery. Grandpa is not here. We laugh and joke about how I will be giving my moment of silence to someone else's grandpa. When I see my cousins, I ask them where Uncle Ray and Grandpa are buried at. It's the Taylor Cemetery, not the Ammon Cemetery. Oh, Taylor, that does sound a little familiar. Oh well. It was still a good run. I still enjoyed running Idaho Falls and some of the back roads, seeing why my grandpa loved that area so much and why he made it his final resting place. I enjoyed running some of the old roads with one bedroom houses and running the Falls. There are a lot of great memories in that town from my childhood, from my dad's and from generations past. I saw parts of Idaho Falls I never knew existed. It's a nice little town.
On a lighter note...the ice bath was exactly that! The hotel had NO hot water so the bath was completely ice cold. Add one and a half bags of ice to that and I was a little incoherent. My very funny sister told me the upside was that maybe my eggies were freezing to be used later. :) The downside to all this was that once I was ready to take a warm shower to thaw out, there was no lukewarm, warm, or hot water to do so. NOT FUN. Wobbling around at the family reunion was also not so much fun. I probably looked a little drunk. But I was only sore for that day. Thank you for ice bath and compression tights, I was walking pain free that night and so on. I think those Idaho Flatlands had a lot to do with it too. I really, really enjoyed running 18 miles. Crazy, I know. Granted it's been a few days, the horrible-ness of it has worn off.
Details:
Distance: 18 miles
Time: 3 hrs 29 min 29 sec (I was hoping to be under 3:30)
Pace: 11:36 min/mile
Calories burned: 2,056
Water gulped: ~25 oz (Thanks to the friendly, cute guy at the gas station :)and the burly guy at the next one)
Gatorade: 10 oz
Vanilla Bean Gu Gels consumed: 2