TWENTY miles, I ran twenty miles!!

OMG! I ran 20 miles.

I needed to run 20 miles.

I was dreading running 20 miles.

I didn't really need to run 20 - Coach Lesley told me it would suffice for me to do 16 or 18 and more important that I have a good run than a bad one with a lot of miles.  I entertained doing less more than once.

But I needed to do 20, to just mentally *know* I could.  In my heart I feel that if I can run 20 I can do 26.2 - it was an important number to hit for my mental preparedness and a huge milestone in the face of all the bumps in my training I've hit along the way.

But I will not lie. I was dreading it.

My 16 miles and 18 mile long runs hurt. A lot. And they weren't very encouraging that I could actually pull off much more. I also dreaded it because as much as I like to run, running for 3-4 hours just doesn't give me a thrill. I mean I get bored watching my favorite band in concert after 2 hours or so, so ya know. The prospect of running for a million hours… Well. That's just tough to get amped for.

But be that as it may, I sucked it up and headed out for the 20.

I did things way different this time. I decided that I would do my own "Galloway" experiment with walking and running. Since I'm not aiming for any sort of time on this thing - my big goal is just to finish,  I would see if that would do me any better. I also purposely slowed my run waaaay down.

What a huge difference.

I will not say it was easy but even at 20 miles the "wall" never came. In my last two runs I hit walls around 13 - 14 miles and thought I was gonna die.

The first 13 I walked for a tenth of a mile at the end of every mile - it actually made things enjoyable. I walked, hydrated, popped a jelly bean and let go of any sort of "time" deadline. It really kept me fresh. Past 15 I walked much, much more and that was more because of stomach cramps than leg issues. Again, I was OK with walking as I needed to. I didn't berate myself - I know that for me and where I am at with training, I'm going to be walking a lot those latter miles so I might as well embrace it.

Sure I will be slow, there will be no record breaking time, no BQ'ing that's for sure :D but I will be a marathoner and I think this approach will not only allow me to finish but keep me injury free and make the experience a good one!!!

Now, hopefully I'll have the discipline on game day to keep my roll slow and stick to the plan!! ;)

20 miles! No matter what happens from this day forward, no one can take that away from me and I'm soooo happy about it.

XO
Jen

I could run 500 miles and I could run 500 more...

I love this corny stuff… Nike celebrates my 500th mile ran. Even though I've run more (this is just since getting Nike+ ) It still makes me happy :)

Did 16 miles this morning. Not. Easy. But psyched that I did it!  this weekend I'll be running my anniversary half at the Jersey Shore!



xo
jen

Long Run Friday report - 12 miles and lots of smiles

Eh, I'm tired. Kind of fits this post - no?

12 miles and I'm happy to report, I'm still standing, well kind of, I've actually decided to throw on some flannel pj's and write from the comfort of bed.  I will probably remain here until about 20 mins before my hubby comes home from work, at which time, I will power clean everything up, throw food on the stove and act as if long run day hadn't completely rendered me useless.

Oh well. That's how it goes. I look forward to the day where 12 miles is just my "usual" morning run but for me, it's still pretty hard core. In fact. it's very hard core. It's the first time I've ever actually run for 12 miles straight. The goal of my last two 1/2 marathons was to finish. So I pretty much ran/walked/crawled those 13.1 miles... there was no inkling that I'd ever run for 13 miles straight... I mean who does that? Well, I do. Now. :D

Anyhoo. It was cold today. Like really cold. But it wasn't awful because there wasn't any wind (THANK YOU LORD!) I'll take the cold over the wind any day. A few thing of note on the cold. It made me have to pee. While I was thinking of my hardcore athlete buddies Jason and Leslie - I thought it wouldn't be a good move on my part at only mile 2...  frozen pee? Likely to be gross and uncomfortable - I'll pass. But LOVING my park, I knew around 3 miles in there were some porta potties - and lucky me, they were open. So I took my first potty break in the middle of a run. Pretty uneventful.

Back to the road. So now, the biggest problem with the cold is how frozen the segment of my legs from my knees - up got. I mean, numb frozen. I had compression socks to my knees so calves were good - I had 40 layers on top - so good there but my knees to butt was a block of ice that made it feel like I was running with 50 pounds of ice cream taped around my legs.  I wonder if fat freezes quicker than muscle? If I could've shed that part of my body, I would've.

So my fat strong thighs never thawed out or warmed up. That made things challenging. I'm pretty sure you could've shot me in the ass with an arrow and I wouldn't have felt it. But what I did start to feel was my lower back ache around mile 9 (reminding me to work on my posture) and around mile 7 my achilles tendon (or something in that area) started to really bother me. The whole time I tried to keep myself "slow and steady" Long run day isn't about speed for me, it's about endurance for the miles... "slow and steady" I just wanted to finish strong. And I did. I did it in 2:22 - an 11:53 pace - not too bad. I'm happy with that.

And I finally ran out of park. The park I run in is great because it feels like it goes on forever. Well it doesn't go on forever, finally, I've learned - at mile 5.5 the park is over - so I had to run around a quaint, unfamiliar NJ town for a mile or so before heading back.

When I got home, I peeled off my shoes to find my toes a bloody mess (I didn't mean that in the cute "British" way - they were literally bloody. I have issues with toes rubbing and what not. Awesome.) So with bloody toes, aches and pains and frozen thighs I raise my arms in victory.  No one ever said that being an athlete was easy... ;)

XO
Jen

NOTE TO SANTA: PLEASE BRING THE UNDER ARMOUR winter pants on my list. Thank you. And the shirt too. I'm sorry for using the word "ass" in this blog - aside from that, I've been a pretty good girl.

PS: If you are interested - this was a very exhaustive article about the Biggest Loser marathon from Runners World. It was an interesting read and since we were talking about it the other day, thought I'd share.

Long run day musings

I have this thing about long run days - part of me really looks forward to them, it's always a challenge to rise to and I always feel amazingly accomplished when I'm done. It is still fairly new for me to be able to run for any sustained time without stopping. I mean, lets remember a year ago at this time, the only running I was doing was to my car, if it was raining, to get holiday gifts. And in said car, was the only way I was traveling 10 miles anyplace, so - there you have it.

Every long run I do is a mini victory, it's a feat I carry in my pocket proudly and I look forward to that dose of "good for me" every week.

On the flip side, there's a small part of me that finds the long run, well, freakin' long... and by the way, thanks to the fact that eventually I'll have to run 26 miles, it's just going to get longer. I have to carve out a minimum of 2 hours for the long run (soon to get longer) and that takes sacrifice and work. I am a partner in a media business that my partner Angela and I have been building that requires full time attention (though, thankfully with a partner who is also a runner, she supports the running thing...), a part time (paid) blogging gig that requires me to do a lot of writing and a toddler that rambles in at 3pm... not to mention all the other stuff that goes along with being a mom and wife... Sorry the laundry hasn't been done, dear. Long run day. OOOPS.

Oh well, it is what it is - Finding balance. I make it a priority because ultimately it's a meaningful journey (and this running blog would be pretty lame if I didn't have any running to talk about.)

Long run days also scare me - looking ahead to next Friday where I'll be jumping to (gulp) 12 miles... oofa.

As we approach this weekend, I have a bunch of friends racing this weekend that I'm very excited about!

Julie and Angela (partner, and one of my BFF's) are running RNR Vegas! - Julie is full, Ang is half!
Natalie, Lesley and Jason are running White Rock in Dallas! Jason is going to set his PR this weekend, I'm so thrilled for him!

My virtual sign for you guys... It cracked me up - hope you like it :)

And I'm running to a baby shower but will be thinking of all my marathoning friends and wishing I was in Vegas/Dallas with big awesome signs, cheering you all on... Because you guys are showing me what the long run day is really all about!

XOXO