Sunday, September 22, 2013

20 Miles Equals Donuts and Iced Coffee

Today was amazing, a little overwhelming actually. From the start of my marathon training, I've been looking ahead to this day on the training schedule. I've worried about today and lost sleep thinking about today. Here it is. Today is the day; the day I completed my first 20 mile run. 
Whoa! Look at that calorie burn!

Up at 4:30 am, I felt well rested, and slightly nervous. I had everything prepared and ready the night before so I wouldn't have to think too much this morning.
Lots of fluids! Gotta hydrate!

Breakfast was my (pre long run) usual Justin's Chocolate Hazelnut Butter and banana sandwich and a glass of iced coffee to get some caffeine on board. It was kind of chilly this morning, but I remembered my gloves this time. No frozen fingers for me! 

I love watching the sun rise in the early morning.

I had my little running buddy with me. Good boy Gunther!

The first 16 miles went by pretty quickly. I even ran into my friend Kim who is also training for the Chicago Marathon. She was also running 20 today, but she had just started and I was almost done, so we said hi quickly and kept going. 
I started to struggle once I got to 17 miles. It began feeling like it was just never going to end! I kept thinking, 'keep moving forward, keep moving forward'. I was overwhelmed with emotion once I got to 20. I had to just sit for a minute to take it all in. What an amazing feeling of accomplishment.
The whole run went really well although I did have some minor pain in my left hip again, so I kept a slower pace and walked up most of the steeper hills. This seemed to really help out and it didn't cause any problems. Mile 20 was my second fastest mile overall and I finished feeling like I still had some gas in the tank. Big confidence booster for the big day.
The best part of all of today is what happened next. Yep. You guessed it. Iced coffee and donuts from North Lime! I've been craving donuts for weeks now!
 I had the North (Key) Lime. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.

I'm in the homestretch now. Three weeks from today is race day. I can't believe how close it is!

Rest and recovery for the night, and then on to the taper! 

Somebody's tired! It only took 15.5 miles to wear him out. Yes, he's got that much energy at 9 years old.

No comments:

Post a Comment