The 18-week training plan hit its peak this weekend, with the last of the three 20-mile runs. From here on, I run fewer miles each week until race day. And I'm thrilled and relieved to say that today's 20-mile run went very, very well:
Running the course
My intention today was to run the first 20 miles of the race course and to make it a pretty realistic dress rehearsal. I woke at 6:15 a.m., ate a breakfast of protein and carbs, got my stuff together, sipped from a glass of water, took a light nap. I walked from my apartment to the starting line a few blocks away, met a friend who is running the first legs of the relay, and we took off running just after 8:00 a.m.
Around mile 4 or 5, the course goes out on a highway, but seeing as how traffic isn't stopped for people in training as it is on race day, we went out a parallel road and approximated the distance. I only knew for sure that we overshot the distance when I plotted it online when I got home.
We parted ways when her part of the relay was over, and I kept going out to the south part of town. Runners were everywhere! Today was cool, sunny and perfect for all of us who getting in our last long run. Coming back up north on the bike path was challenging, with a strong wind coming off the lake. Even though the sun was bright, I felt so cold in some of those stretches - my fingers were white, red and swollen, and the sweat dried on my arms in salty, grimy streaks.
I passed through the halfway point and headed toward Battery Hill, which the big hill of the course. I needed to stop and stretch and I debated whether I should stop at the bottom of the hill, or push through to the top. I did make it to the top of Battery - though my run slowed to a jog to nearly a walk - and I took advantage of the public bathroom at the police station in Battery Park.
I continued north, knowing I only had 4 miles left to go and they really much better than I expected. Remembering how hard those final 5 were in my last 20 miler in San Diego, I kept a running pep talk in my head, and kept my head down, and just kept chugging along. At some points i realized I got distracted from convincing myself to keep going and realized that I just running without thinking too much about it. it actually wasn't that bad, this long run. I had picked a turn-around point in one of the neighborhoods and I knew I was close when I got there. I did have to resume the, 'don't you dare stop, you're doing fine' speech. I started thinking about what the next three weeks of tapering will be like, and adopted a nicely alliterative phrase to keep going: stretch, sustenance, sleep, speed - this is what I intend to focus on for the next three weeks, and I think I'll do just fine.
The numbers
So it turns out that today's planned 20 miles were in fact 21.2 miles. I love that .2! This was a purely accidental but auspicious distance: I just need to scrape, crawl and hurl myself 5 more miles and I'm at the finish line.
The run took me about 4 1/2 hours, which is slow, but fine. If I work really hard and adrenaline works its magic, I might finish the race in 5 1/2 hours.
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