Decision made: 18 hilly, hot miles....

We met up with our usual friends at 5am & circled back at 5:30am for more friends.  I had taken two sportslegs tabs, ate my usual oatmeal, banana, honey stinger gel, & coffee all before leaving the house.  I drank as much as I could but probably should've drank more.  I ate 9 dates & took in a gel that came in my stridebox that had coconut water in it.  It went down fast since it was watery.  I took that in when we finished up the 6-7 mile hilly loop. 
We did roughly 3-3.5 by 5:30am then hit the 6-7 mile hilly loop that involves Sunset Middle, a neighborhood, & lots of hills, then we were back at Mama's Java refilling bottles, etc...  We then took off for about 2+ flat miles, including the Industrial park, the ball park, Nolensville Elementary, then I decided to take the "Wednesday night 5+ mile hilly loop" to finish the run off or rather "finish me off".  LOL!  I'm trying hard to add hills at the end of most of my "long" runs simply because the Monumental course does have a few small rollers the back half as I've stated before on here.  This was tough simply because it felt really warm by the time we ran that last hour.  Keep in mind it was 70 degrees when we started at 5am.  At mile 10 when I was feeling awesome, I made the decision to go on with the 18 miles.  I knew deep down it was the right thing to do this weekend since we have the Franklin Classic 10k on Labor Day & I want a shorter "long" run two days before.  Doing a 20 miler two days before that 10k sucked last year & I was determined not to do that again. 

18 miles - 2:51:26 - 9:32 pace
Way slower than my winter 18 miler but that's what summer long runs are...slower!  I have to say I am A OK with the pace, though.  The later warmer miles on tired legs on massive hills were tough.  I was having to play mental games with myself on them since the heat was getting to me.  Many thanks to Jo Ann who ran the entire time with me.  The woman needs to push "play" on her first marathon for sure.

1- 9:12
2- 9:16
3- 8:54
4- 10:15 (putting my fuel belt on & getting the 5:30am crowd)
5- 9:19
6- 9:02 (starting the hills on the loop)
7- 9:03
8- 9:19
9- 9:18
10- 9:09
11- 10:57 (back at the car for refueling)
12- 9:26
13- 9:27 (start hitting the hills again)
14- 9:58 (ugh....Ballenger....& more hills)
15- 9:38
16- 9:43
17- 9:53 (The former "C25ker's" nicknamed this course "hell on hills" for a reason)
18- 9:39