22.45 miles DONE

My long run went GREAT on Saturday morning! It was all I could hope for and more. Here's how it all went down!

Stats -
Distance: 22.45 miles
Time: 3:34:00
Average Pace: 9:31 minutes per mile

On Friday night, my goal was to relax and rest. I ate an early dinner at 5:30pm of whole wheat pasta tossed with marinara sauce and sauteed zucchini and spinach, accompanied by a piece of bread and a glass of water. Chad has been pretty sick all week, and his throat has been really bothering him. Dairy Queen blizzards sounded good to both of us, so we got them and then settled in to watch Miracle, the story of the 1980 USA Olympic hockey team. I've seen it a few times before, so I knew it would be very inspirational!

I actually stayed up until 10:00 watching the movie, which is so late for me! But I was resting on the couch under a blanket with a sleepy dachshund, so I didn't feel guilty for staying up late. I stayed awake for 99% of the movie - the 1% I missed was the final minutes in the 3rd period of the game against the Soviets....argh! That is like the "miracle" part!

I moved to the bed, and slept like a baby until my alarm went off at 4:15am. I hopped out of bed - I was so excited for the run! I got the coffee going and made some oatmeal with 1 tbsp. peanut butter and 1 banana mixed in. I drank a cup of coffee and some water, filled two water bottles (1 was just water, 1 was a water/Gatorade mix), got my ShotBlocks ready and prepared some post-run snacks. Then I got dressed, made some final bathroom visits, and then headed to Wilmore at 5:45am.

Somehow my bladder managed to fill to capacity during the 10 minute drive, but after a quick port-o-potty stop I was ready to hit the roads. I ran 5.8 miles from 6:10-7:00am, and then I met up with friends Sarah, Angela and Lindsay. We ran 10.2 miles together, which put me at 16. Sarah and Angela are training for a half-marathon, and they are doing so great! They will kick butt at the half-marathon in April.

Lindsay is training for a marathon and was feeling good during the 10 miles, so she decided to do another 6 with me. Lindsay is tiny and fast so I was a little concerned about being able to keep up with her for my final 6 miles. But she held back and slowed down a little for me, all the while pushing me to go faster than I would have if I was on my own, which was great!

During the run, I never felt like I needed to slow down or walk. We park and keep all of our water in the police station parking lot which is right in the middle of town, so we looped back by there about 3 times to get water. I ate ShotBlocks every 3 miles, and I never felt like I was on the verge of "bonking" or wearing out. The weather was perfect - sunny, clear and in the 50's - so it wasn't too hot or too chilly.

Towards the end I started to feel pretty fatigued in my back and shoulders, but my legs and lungs felt great during the run. Running with friends makes all of the difference - we kept a nice steady pace, and talked the entire time. This made the time fly by. We actually were at 22.45 when we were about 5 blocks from the police station, so I decided to stop my watch there and walk the rest of the way to stretch out a little before driving home.

I packed an apple, pretzels, chips and a Clif Bar to eat on the way home, but all I wanted was the apple. That was the best apple I have ever eaten! When I got home I drank chocolate milk and ate a few pretzels, and then took Emma on a 30 minute walk to stretch out. I really think this is key - taking a long, slow walk after a long run always helps me to feel much better the next day.

I could not believe how good I felt after the run. I had to run a few errands around Lexington shortly after the run and I didn't feel sore or tired at all! It was crazy! I had planned on laying in the fetal position all day and eating Taco Bell.

Chad and I actually went to Springfield, Kentucky on Saturday night with some friends, and we got home at 11:00pm. 11:00pm! Now that is late for me on a normal day, but after running 22 miles? But I actually was able to stay up that late. Running really gives me so much energy!

I did go straight to bed when we got home though, and I woke up on Sunday with no soreness. My legs felt a little fatigued, like I ran a hard 5k, but it was nothing like I expected. I attribute this to 4 things:

1. Diet
2. Training plan
3. Diet
4. Diet

Yes - your diet really does matter! I was very careful about what I ate all last week - making sure to get in lots of fruits and veggies, and cutting out the junk that I tend to eat like Taco Bell and cookies. I know that baked goods are definitely my weakness - I have such a sweet tooth! So I keep a stash of almonds, apples and Larabars at my desk now to satisfy my sweet cravings. I am 100% convinced that my diet this past week helped with my long run, and I am going to continue introducing more and more raw foods into my diet.

I am really, really looking forward to the marathon! My goal is 4:30, and I know I can meet this if I am able to keep a steady 9:30 pace. I am now in the tapering phase, so I know that my diet and nutrition will play a key role in these next few weeks.

Next up, the Lexington Half-Marathon next Sunday morning!

Weekly Run-Down
Monday 2/22
Scheduled rest day

Tuesday 2/23
Distance: 4.01
Time: 35:07
Average Pace: 8:45

Wednesday 2/24
Distance: 8.14
Time: 1:12:00
Average Pace: 8:50

Thursday 2/25
Rest

Friday 2/26
Rest

Saturday 2/27
Distance: 16.52
Time: 2:30:03
Average Pace: 9:04

Sunday 2/28
60:00 on trainer

I planned to run 4 miles on Thursday, but I woke up with an awful sinus headache. I've been dancing with a sinus infection for about a week, and Thursday and Friday brought the worst of it. I think it is gone for good now. I had a bad headache and just felt pretty "blah" on Thursday and Friday, so I used them both as rest days in order to be in good shape for Saturday 's long run.

Friday was a long day for both of us, so Chad and I decided to stay home, order pizza, and watch "Waiting for Guffman" which was in from Netflix. "Waiting for Guffman" is so funny, and is the 2nd (counting "Spinal Tap" as the first) of Christopher Guest's mock-umentary style movies. If you haven't seen it (or "A Mighty Wind" or "Best in Show") I highly recommend them!

I wasn't sure how my 16 mile run would go. Most of my running group was at a retreat, so I knew I would be alone for all of the run. But I was kind of looking forward to running alone, because I knew it would be great mental training for this week's 18 mile run. I am going out of town on Saturday with friends to visit the Raborns (yes!! I am so excited!!) so I am going to do my 18 mile run on Friday morning.

I headed out the door at 7:30 am to falling snow, which had blanketed streets and sidewalks. I immediately started thinking thoughts like "maybe this isn't safe, maybe I should only do 4 today and then do 16 tomorrow when its clear, my feet are going to get soaking wet, this is going to be miserable" and etc. I decided that I would do 4 miles, and then figure out what I was going to do. As I got going, I realized that it wasn't bad at all! The snow stopped after about thirty minutes, and the fresh snow on the sidewalks actually provided a nice soft layer that wasn't slick at all. I pushed aside thoughts of quitting and postponing the run, and I settled in for a two and a half hour run through the streets of Nicholasville.

I had a good idea of what an 8 mile loop would be, so I did that first and it ended up being 8.66 miles. For my second loop, I cut out one part of the first loop to try to get closer to 8 miles even, but then I realized I would be short on my second loop. I didn't want to get to my house and then have to keep running, so I added in a loop around Lake Mingo, a local park. This brought me to 7.86 miles for second loop, and a total of 16.52 miles for the run.

This run was great preparation for my 18 miler on Friday. I plan to do the 8.66 mile loop twice, and then add in a little at the end to bring me to 18 total. Mentally, it wasn't a challenging run at all. For the first 2 hours I listened to podcasts (Zen and the Art of Triathlon and the SimplyStu Triathlon Podcast) and then for the last 30 minutes I listened to my running playlist. I was also captivated by how beautiful it was outside. My first loop was really nice, because there wasn't much traffic out and the snow was fresh and clean. On my second loop, cars were spraying salt and dirty snow from the road up onto the sidewalks, so that wasn't quite as pretty.

One thing that was really funny was that I was able to see all kinds of different tracks in the snow. I saw bird tracks, raccoon tracks, cat and dog tracks, and even a shopping cart track. There is a man who walks up and down Main St. pushing a shopping cart, and he had paved the way before me. The funniest part was that he must have had an open bag of cheese popcorn in his cart, because there was a trail of cheese popcorn in between the shopping cart tracks for about a mile. I started thinking of Hansel and Gretel, but with Cheester Cheetah playing the part of Hansel.
The other interesting thing about doing two loops in the snow is that on my second loop I could see my footprints from my first loop. I tried to replicate my stride and land in my tracks, but I just couldn't do it. I could really tell that my legs were looser on the second loop and that my stride was longer. It was pretty interesting!

The streets and sidewalks were a little slushier on my second loop, and there were several times where one or both of my feet would be totally submerged in an icy puddle. My socks, Thorlo Experias, were absolutely amazing, and dried almost instantly. I thought that cold wet feet would be a major issue on this run, but these socks defied the odds and kept my feet warm and dry. They were totally worth the $13 I paid for them at Run Wild in Alexandria.

My knees bothered me a tiny bit during the run, but they were very sore afterwards. I need to start icing them after runs, which will hopefully help with some of the soreness. I felt great after finishing - I was tired, but I felt like I could easily run another 4 or 6 miles. I think having access to my trainer during this training season has really helped with my aerobic fitness, which has helped to improve my endurance. In March I am going to get back into the pool, so I think that will help as well. After the run, I drank a PB&J (1 tbsp. peanut butter, 1 frozen banana, strawberry yogurt, few ounces of 1% milk) recovery smoothie and ate an apple.

This morning my knees were still pretty sore, so I put in an hour of fairly easy spinning on the trainer. This really helped to alleviate some of the soreness. We've had a pretty quiet day - church this morning, then a trip to Goodwill to drop off a ton of donations (I've already got spring cleaning fever!) and now we are watching the Olympics and are going to make some potato soup later. A nice end to a quiet weekend!

On a non-training note, I would really appreciate your prayers for my grandmother. She is having some stomach/kidney issues, and is going to be getting a second opinion on her diagnosis tomorrow. Her name is Nell, but we all call her Mimi. She is my dad's mom, and one of the funniest people that I know. We all love her so much and I hate that she is in pain. If you are the praying type, I hope that you will send up an extra one today for Mimi.

Getting Back

on the wagon. I've officially fallen off the marathon training wagon, but today I am making the attempt to get back on. March means it's pledge drive time in PBS land, so my schedule always gets really hectic this time of the year. At the station I work at, we pledge live on-air from March 1st-16th. It's a really fun time, but it starts to get crazy juggling all of my normal day to day responsibilites in the office, plus all the work and pre-pledge and post-pledge things that have to get taken care of in the studio. It makes for long days and 7 day, 70 hour work weeks, and I always have a difficult time juggling my work schedule and training. Last year it wasn't so bad because I was training for a half marathon, and it was relatively easy to get back on track with my mileage. With a full marathon training plan, I've found it's not so easy to catch back up. I've only really strayed from the plan this past week, so I hope too much damage hasn't been done.

Luckily, I am off all day today and I am going to get an 18-miler in. It is cold and raining/sleeting, so I am going to head to the gym in about an hour and do the run in three 6 mile segments - just to break up the monotony of being on a treadmill for three hours. I'm really hoping that next week I can get back on track and stick to my schedule - I might modify it slightly since I have been so fatigued from work. I would rather get something in and than do nothing at all. The good news is that starting on the 17th everything will go back to normal.

I think I am really stressing about my training more than usual because I want to do really well in Cincinnati in May. My family is going to be there and I am going to be running with my sister Megan, and I just want to be able to keep up. And I would love to run it in 4:30. This would knock about 35 minutes off of my previous marathon time, which seems crazy, but I really feel like I can do it. I guess we'll see!

Update

The 20-miler went well. I am still alive, so that is a good sign. I had a really good time running in Wilmore, but oh my goodness was it hilly. It was neat getting to run past and see my friend waving at from the window of a coffee shop, and to stop at another friend's house for a much needed pit stop and bathroom break - there was even an encouraging sign waiting for me! (Don't worry Dru, the one man cheerleading squad wasn't awkward at all!)

I think I was pretty well prepared with fluids and PowerBars, but it was a pretty tough run. I am already looking forward to my next long, long run - a 22 miler on September 15th. I will do one more 20 mile run on either September 29th or October 6th - I need to do some research to see if it is ok to only taper off for two weeks instead of three. I have events at work practically every weekend in September, but I am determined to fit all of my long runs in this weekend. This weekend I will be donning a Clifford the Big Red Dog costume at a local art museum...I will be sure to post pictures.

On another note, Chad started back for his second year at Asbury Seminary yesterday. He has been very antsy this past month for school to start up, so I know he's excited to get rolling again. I wanted to take a "first day of school" picture of him, but he wouldn't let me, so you'll just have to trust me that he looked very cute.