Marathon Training: Week 13 (the final 20 miles)

4.01.2013


I am unbelievably proud of that 20 there on the end. It took all my positive thoughts and mental stamina to put one foot in front of the other and finish that monster.

And to think: in just a few short weeks I will be running 20 miles and then another 6.2 after that!

My schedule was originally for 12 miles on Saturday, but after my depressing week 12 of training, where I was sick and forced to skip my 20-mile run, I decided to run 15 miles.

I got up early Saturday morning and met up with a friend of mine to run 8 miles. She's training for the half marathon, so 8 was her long run. After finishing 8, we parted ways, and I set off to finish the last 7 miles for a total of 15.

But somewhere between mile 13 and 14, I got it in my head that I wanted to do 16 miles. Then, after mile 15, I decided to just go to 17. The same thing happened with 18, and all of the sudden I'd talked myself into running a full 20.

The last 3 miles were pretty terrible. I was actually counting by 1/4 miles. I couldn't even think far enough ahead to count in half miles, so I was like, "Just get to 17.25. Good. Okay, now get to 17.5."

I think I was having such a hard time because it was close to 70 degrees by this time and because I hadn't run farther than 12 miles in 3 weeks. Whatever the reason was, I was never so happy to stop running as I was when my Garmin hit 20.

I finished in 3:16, so almost 30 seconds/mile slower than the last 20-mile run I did. But I'm very happy to have run the whole thing, and I'm happy to say that this is the longest I will have to run until my marathon.

As for the rest of the week, here's what my workouts looked like:

Monday: 5 miles @ 10:45 pace.

This was my first "long" run back from being sick, and even though it was a slower pace, I was really happy just to be out and about.

Tuesday: 1 hour of boot camp

Thursday: 6 miles @9:05 pace + 1 hour of boot camp

Saturday: 20 miles @9:49 pace

Total mile count for March: 108
Total mile count for 2013: 264.61

P.S. An update on my new Moving Comfort sports bra: after 20 miles, I am SO happy to report that I had NO CHAFING. None. This is a miracle. I am officially a Moving Comfort convert. If you run/workout/need a good sports bra, buy one immediately. You won't be sorry.

Mimsie said...

Great training run, especially after being sick!

jillconyers said...

Great come back after being sick! I love Moving Comfort sports bras.

I have a 20 mile training run next weekend :)

jillconyers said...

Hope you don't mind a blog question :)

What plugin to you use that puts the hover Pin It button on the image? Thanks so much!

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