Monday, August 20, 2012

Crazy 18 mile training run

Let's talk about long run day. Again.

18 miles.
Did I mention that I've never followed a training plan before? For ANY of my races in the history of my running life (three years). Never ever. I've decided that I was going to do it and then just not followed through many times. (ten half marathons, two full marathons, one 10k, and several 5ks)

This time I'm following a plan. (minus when my toe was smashed and I was put out of commission for a few days) I almost didn't. I didn't want to do 18 miles today. I couldn't sleep last night and woke up after about 4-5 hours, thinking that 18 sounded horrible. I was tired before I started and that just sucked. A lot.

Kath and I ran together, thank goodness. I'm not 100% sure that I could have done it without her. Somehow, we did it though. Kath had never run further than 14 miles in her life and, like I said, outside of a race, I've never run that distance before. It was rough, to be honest. Beyond rough. I'm drained and exhausted and my legs still feel like they are on fire.

But we did it! We got stuck in a crazy storm for a while and we had to stop at Publix and wait it out. There was no way that I was going to risk crazy lightning. It was good though. Sort of like cheating, but not really. You have to do what you have to do in times like that. I felt AWESOME between miles 4-15. When I got to 15.5-16, I started to feel miserable. It's sort of like the emotional stuff that I've gone through during the marathons that I've run. I get these really intense highs and lows, but I think that's normal(ish). It's at least normal during a race. I'm not sure that I like it though.

I am sort of elated that I finished my run today. Next week's long run is 20 miles. I do NOT have my mind wrapped around that at this time. Wow.........................

(plus, I've joined the work softball time plus my class starts this week.)

Goal: 1000 miles/366 days
So far: 522.01 miles/233 days
To go: 477.99 miles/133 days

2 comments:

  1. You are awesome! Even on the days when it's the last thing you want to do... now you can look back and say "Holy _____ (clever word here)... I did it!"

    You're awesome. Keep pushing through!

    (PS. Are there really only 133 days left in the year?)

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  2. I second everything Megan said! I'm glad we ran that together. I did figure out where the pretty paths are that I was talking about before. I think that if we ran that way during our 20 miler...if we can run it together we could get some pretty miles in. But Idk. While you were pooping out at the end I had about a half mile where it sucked at the end but other than that I could feel the end in sight and that made me feel like pushing through you know? It was really intense....was it cheating that we stopped at subway and I got a footlong? We did what we had to do....lol.

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