New Ground

Broke the 20-mile barrier on my run this morning. This was a milestone, as I've read on a few running sites that when preparing for your first marathon, if you can do 20 miles in training, the adrenaline of the real race will give you that "something extra" to push through to 26.2. I have no idea if that's really true, though I did run my fastest 5-mile ever during the Snowball 5-mile race.

I decided to do 5-mile laps on this run so I could leave a bottle of sport drink out and take a sip on each lap. Also, if things did not go well, I could bail without needing to call for a pick-up. It worked out well. I ended up doing 3 laps of my usual 5.5 mile morning route, plus 1 lap of Linda's 3.4 mile route, then another trip up and down the block to get the 20. Honestly, after mile 15, it was not pretty. It was all I could do to pick the legs up and put them down. But, the mental achievement is probably as important as the physical one. I know I can do 20!

A few other factors about today's run that will, hopefully, be more in my favor for May 2nd. First, I did not taper. Actually, I did a 15-mile run 6 days ago and a 10-mile run on Thursday. I'll taper at least a week before the marathon. Second, I hope I will not be fighting 20 MPH winds on marathon day, but, you never know. And third, I had a bit of a stomach issue in the morning, but not too bad.

Glad its done. It was hard, and I felt like the last 5 miles would never end, but I proved to myself it was doable.