Training week 5

Back from the brink...

Monday: rest

Doctor's appointment:

Got the dehydration lecture (perhaps valid), the "do you take any vitamins or anything?" talk, the scheduling of future blood work, and my favorite comment, "is this your normal weight, cause you're a runner, right?" I interpreted that as "seriously, you can't drop the extra 10-20 pounds running?" I recovered and actually liked the doctor, but still...

Tuesday: 7 miles scheduled.

Um, I did 2.11 very slowly. At least it was forward movement.

Wednesday: 12 miles scheduled.

Back to baby steps. I ran 7 miles at noon, ave. pace 10:15 min/mile. It was 95 degrees with 50% humidty.

Thursday: rest.

I've done enough resting, thank you very much. I ran 8 miles at 4:45 a.m. in 1:24:xx. It was 75 degrees, 95% humidity.

11:38/10:42/10:40/10:36/10:14/10:13/10:19/10:09

Friday: 10 miles scheduled.

I'm going back to the "rest" plan. I can pretend I flip-flopped Thursday and Friday.

Saturday: 5 miles recovery scheduled.

I ran 20 miles. Really.

Sunday was looking to be insanely busy, so I decided to do my long run on Saturday. Even though my long runs had been absolutely cursed and I should have dropped my mileage, I decided it was worth the injury risk to run the full 20 miles, just to restore faith in my marathon chances.

So, out the door at 5:15 a.m. (sleeping in!). It was 77 degrees with 85% humidity- wow, cool snap! And I ran, and ran, and ran. I had a frozen bottle of Gatorade from miles 1-8, water from 9-14, and Gatorade from 14-20. I took 2 endurolytes before the run, and 1 during. I had gels at miles 8 and 14. The gel at mile 8 did seem to give me more energy- and I had to keep telling myself that at mile 14 as I gagged down the second one. I left a cooler on my front porch with my frozen bottles and sunglasses- when I swapped out, I tossed my flashlight. I did feel like a hardcore runner! The thing about 20 miles isn't so much that it hurts (although it does, especially the last 2-3 miles), but it's so tedious. I threw in a bit of a fast-finish effort in some of the later miles- not so much for the training effects as to just make the run end faster. Twenty miles is like the world's worst road trip (and sometimes, briefly, it's the world's best road trip- go figure!)

11:37/10:39/10:14/10:05/10:17/10:08/10:04/10:25/9:52/9:46/10:04/9:20/9:31/9:35/9:19/9:08/9:35/10:08/10:07/10:45

So, the long run curse is officially broken!

Sunday: 20 miles scheduled.

Ha! Rest day. I was tired obviously, but not that sore. Plus, the soreness I was feeling was even- I only panic when one part of my body hurts more than another- that would be the sign of injury vs. soreness (learned that the hard way!)