20

Been looking forward to my first 20-miler since I ran 19 a month ago.  Imagined myself feeling strong and great about my accomplishment.  Let's just say it didn't live up to the expectation.  In a word, it sucked!  :)

Mile 1 - Fuel belt felt like it weighed a ton from the very beginning.  I carry three 10 oz. bottles, so it's never light, but I've run with it for so many months, it's virtually become a part of me on long runs.  Not today.

Mile 2 - That little quad/knee issue that I've been battling since September let me know it was still there.  Thankfully, it didn't bother me throughout the run.  But still scary on the front end of a long run.

Mile 3 - Legs just felt heavy.  Really?  That early?  Clearly, it wasn't the mileage.  Just not my day.

Mile 4 - Stopped for my first energy gel.  Had to take extra time to get a rock out of my shoe. 

Mile 5 - Abdominal cramps.  Not something I usually have to deal with.  Didn't stop me but definitely slowed me down. 

Mile 7 - Running uphill and against the wind sucks!

Mile 8 - I had been tune-free to this point, just trying to enjoy nature.  But nature was pretty uneventful this morning, so I popped my ear buds in, along with another energy gel.

Mile 10 - Stopped at a hospital to refill my bottles.  My luck, the bathroom downstairs was out of order.  Fortunately, I was still able to climb (and descend) the double flight of stairs!  Only later did it occur to me that I probably could have taken an elevator...but what's the point of that when you're trying to be fit?  (This represents a total change from the days when I took the elevator upstairs to walk around the track!)

Mile 12 - Slightly nauseated.  Ugh.

Mile 14 - Accepted that this was not my day.  Abandoned original strategy of approaching this as five 4-mile runs w/ GU breaks in between.  Decided to run .4 and walk .1. 

Mile 15 - Saw a beautiful Monarch butterfly...as I was listening to the song, "Wings."  A nice moment of synchronicity and a reminder that the Creator is always with me--even on runs that suck!

Mile 16.5 - Tried skipping because I'd heard it's sometimes easier due to using different muscles.  Didn't help.  My whole body was fatigued, so it didn't matter which muscles I used.  More nausea.  Double ugh.

Mile 18 - Hill that climbs almost 150 feet.  Yeah, I walked that. ;)

Mile 19.5 - Just a half mile from home, but I was completely out of water.  Figured my time was already going to be terrible, so I stopped inside a hotel to get a drink and enough water to make it home.

Mile 20 - Finished!  Not quite the feeling of triumph I'd hoped for, but I didn't quit.  I had resisted temptation to sit down in the cushy lounge chairs at the hospital and the temptation to call a cab somewhere along those last 4 miles.  (Running with a credit card is a double-edged sword!)

Perhaps the scariest thing about this run was the little question that started tickling the back of my mind: Why are you doing this???  I guess it's natural to have doubts when things don't go well, and I had been fortunate that my last bad long run like this was a 13.1 back in August, so I had forgotten the feeling.  But I know why I am doing this.  I have my heart set on the Marine Corps Marathon.  One of the reasons I love those guys is that they don't quit, even when things get tough.  So neither will I.

And rather than dread the 21-miler I have planned for next month, I'm going to look at it as a do-over for this terrible 20.  Reflecting on it, I think there are several things I can do differently to make the next one better:

- Skip the gym the night before.  This may sound like a no-brainer, but I love going to the gym on Saturday nights and have been in the habit of cross-training even the night before a long run.  It was fine when I did this before, but it caught up with me today, perhaps because I did too much and spent too long in the sauna/steam room.  Duh.  I had my reasons for doing what I did, but now I see how it cost me--not only in terms of energy expenditure but also by keeping me up past my bedtime.  Easy fix.

- More time between breakfast and starting run.  Staying up late meant that I ate and ran because I was trying to beat the heat (which I ended up not doing because I bombed and took forever to finish).  Hopefully waking up earlier and eating before other pre-run activities will solve the cramping issue, if indeed failure to do so was the cause. 

- No butter for breakfast.  First time having biscuits for breakfast before a long-run.  Wonder if that contributed to nausea.

- Drink ZipFizz.  It's loaded with B Vitamins and gives me energy.  I usually down one before a long run, but this morning I forgot.  Ooops!

- Wear compression shorts/tights.   I had done so for my last several long runs.  Today the weather was warmer, so I opted to run in shorts with compression sleeves and save the tights for recovery.  My quads and hams were less than thrilled with the decision.  (Good to know my high-dollar investment in compression gear DOES make a difference!)  Oh, and given the awesome tan lines on my knees from today, I'm tempted to say, if it's cool enough to wear calf sleeves, you might as well wear tights.  Of course, this means now I need to buy another pair....

- Shorter intervals.  When I did 18 miles, I ran 1, walked .1, and so on.  For Cowtown, my strategy was to walk the aid stations, which were 1.5 miles apart.  When I did 19, I decided to run 1.8/walk .1--more closely approximating the 2-mile spacing of aid stations at MCM (and helping me overcome my prime number aversion associated with doing 19!).  Because of fewer walk breaks, I ran 19 in less time than 18.  And I felt so fresh after that I thought today I'd try walking only every 4 miles, which obviously didn't work out so well.  Maybe today was just a bad day.  Or maybe I'm not there yet. 

So despite the run not going at all like I hoped, I did finish, and I learned lots of things that will help me moving forward.  That's why they're called training runs, and I'm really happy to have my first 20-miler under my belt 6+ months before marathon day!