Friday, April 25, 2014

20 Mile RUN!

OH MY GOODNESS.... WHO AM I?! Did I REALLY just finish a TWENTY MILE RUN?! LONGEST RUN EVA (until my full that is :))!! My mind says NO but my body sure says YES :)

I left the house about 6:30am this morning for my 20-miler. Instead of my normal PowerBar 30-45 minutes before heading out the door I had a banana instead (we have a couple that are on the RIPE side and I want to get rid of them before they go bad). It was around 51* when I began my run, which was a little brisk {I know, I'm a wimp, I lost my Michigan blood about 2 weeks after moving to SoCal}, but hey, I'd prefer that to hot and humid any day!

A snap shot of my route from my hubby's phone
(I send him eCrumbs through Road ID's app so he can track me)

Around a half mile into the run my shin started to feel a little tight, which normally means I am running too fast too early. I figured it was either that or my legs were tired. I looked at my watch and unfortunately it was the latter... I knew then it was going to be a long run.

I'm not too bad at the running selfie :)

The weather called for mostly cloudy, which was nice. If it would have been sunny I would have been running directly into it from miles 2 through 7, so I was happy to have a little cloud cover. I was even able to snap a quick picture on my phone of the rays coming down (it's my favorite when you can see the individual sun rays poking through the clouds).

Rays from Heaven

I decided I would try and keep my pace right around 10 minute miles, which is what I am planning on running on race day (I have actually been training at 9 minute miles being my "race pace", but will be running with a friend whose pace is 10 minutes per mile. My thought process behind that is A. I won't lose speed while adding on the additional mileage and B. I will be able to "enjoy" my first marathon. I guess only time will tell to see if it works out the way I am thinking it will in my head :)).

This was one run that was NOT easy. Don't get me wrong, I was not expecting it to be without effort, but in the past my last few long runs haven't felt hard per say. I had been able to keep my pace around 9-9:30 for most of the miles, but during this entire run I felt like I was struggling to keep my 10:00 minute mile pace (I was able to bust out a 9:15 mile for mile 19 and a sub-9 minute mile for my last one). I am going to blame it on my tired legs and hope that with the taper that is coming up my legs will get some much needed rest and they will be strong and better than ever on race day.

Even if the miles are taxing, I still wear a smile on my face!

Around mile 14.75 I took a quick break to stretch my calves and lower back (not sure if the back soreness is due to pounding the pavement or my fibromyalgia, but I am leaning more towards my fibro...). Thankfully the little break was what I needed and it seemed like the final 5 miles went by a lot easier. Unfortunately my "course" was a little short of 20 miles so I had to go around our complex twice, but I wasn't too far off.

Right before my Garmin died :) 

Once I got home, I knew I was going to head down to our non-heated pool for another "ice-bath" like I did after my 19-miler. As you can see from the picture, I started to cool down a bit and realize how chilly the water was after about 5 minutes in the pool, not to mention the mostly cloudy sky was preventing any sunshine from coming down to warm me up, so my ice bath didn't last too long, but hey at least it was something.

BRRRRRRRRRRRR

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I had a new (to me) flavor of Clif Shot Bloks this morning - Strawberry. THEY WERE DELICIOUS! (I grabbed them at Target, the only flavor they had, since I ran out of the ones that I had from previous race expos.) I took 3 bloks at mile 7 and another 3 at mile 14. I think for my marathon I am going to stick with fuel every 6 miles - so at mile 6, 12, 18, and 24. I was "okay" today, but I think during the race I would prefer to have a little extra go. {PS When I put this information about my fueling and such, it is not a recommendation as it is more to remind me what worked on a particular run so when I look back at it in the future I have something to go off of.}

Yesterday's Target purchases - Tylenol (since I am allergic to Ibuprofen), a cute baseball tee (50% off of course), a pretty throw blanket (also 50% off), and stocking up on some Clif Shot Bloks :)

For the rest of the afternoon I am planning on stretching, hydrating, wearing my PRO Compression calf sleeves (love that I can wear these under jeans, with sandals, and folks don't know.... because I will NOT rock the sock and sandal combo :)), and foam rolling the crap out of my muscles.

What is your distance personal record?

2 comments:

Jami said...

Congrats on your long run. You'll totally rock that marathon!!

Amy said...

20 miles! That's seriously AWESOME!!!