20 Miles

I first want to start by saying that I am amazed by people who can run a marathon fast. A lot of the blogs I read, these ladies are fast. They run a marathon in the time I ran 20 miles. However, this is the longest distance I've ever run and I'm just proud that I did it.

I woke up Saturday morning to cold temps and frost on the ground. When I got to the start of the trail it said 30 degrees on the thermometer.

I had on my ear warmers, gloves, Nike tech capris (which surprisingly kept my legs warm) a long sleeve shirt and a fleece. No picture of this lovely sight as my hubby was still sleeping when I left.

When I started running I could not figure out why my hands were numb, literally freezing, until I realized my hand held water bottle lid was not on tight and water was splashing all over my hands. It was cold but I warmed them up by putting them under my shirt - body heat is awesome.

Once I got going I started to warm up nicely and the cold air didn't really affect my breathing at all but my nose was running like crazy.

I stopped around mile 5 at a gas station to pee and take off the fleece. In a nutshell my run went very well until about mile 16 I started to feel very tired. I did stop at mile 12 because I was back at my car and needed more water (since most of it leaked out before I started running).

So mile 16 I start getting tired and then I get more and more tired as the miles go on. By 18 I had to stop and walk. I didn't even know if I was going to finish 20. I guess this is what people mean by hitting the wall. I wasn't really cramping I was just tired.

I walked for about a minute and told myself to get my butt moving. My pace was so slow towards the end and I wondered how in the hell am I going to make it 6 more miles?

The last .3 miles I ran as fast as my little tired legs would go, which really wasn't that fast at all, but I got 20.12 miles done! Barely!

Avg pace was 9:59. At least it was under 10 minute mile.

My "I'm so happy it's over" pose. 

Even though I have never run 20 miles before and am proud, I'm slightly disappointed that I started to crap out at mile 16 and 17. Did I not eat enough the day before? I thought I did, which could have also been the problem...maybe I was too full and sluggish. Who knows.

What I do know is I want to run a little faster than that on race day. I don't want to feel like crap and feel like I'm not going to make it, question why in the world I decided to do this.

So I'm going to do another 20 miler in three weeks - Christmas Eve or the day before. I feel like this one doesn't fully prepare me.

The good news is I was not as sore as I thought I was going to be afterwards or the next day. Some of that is due to me wearing my Recovery Socks right after I got home. We even went out to dinner that evening with friends and I stayed up till 11:30! What!? Ha.

I did cross training yesterday and I could tell my body was tired so I tried to keep the weight light.

Today is a rest day and I'll be back at it tomorrow morning.