18 Miles!!!!

I am going to start my taper in a week. I plan on doing my 20 mile run this weekend. Of course that will be the longest run of my life! I have this week off from work, so I decided to cram another long run in before the weekend. Of course, the weather has been absolutely wonderful this past week... but today it was super sunny and almost 80 degrees. I was still going to do it. I loaded up on fluids before the run and took a 16oz bottle with me. That water was gone by mile 5!! At mile 7, I was still at least 4 miles from home, so I stopped at a Walgreen's and bought a Gatorade. I wisened up this time and stuffed some cash in my pocket. I also took a Gu at mile 5, just as my water ran out.

I just could not get my pace up, but that was good because I was not trying to do an all out tempo pace. I took a break after 12 miles. I hadn't eaten all day so I was really starting to feel the fatigue (and hunger). So I downed an unknown amount of chocolate milk rested about half hour and took back to the pavement. I felt rested, but for some reason, this time around was REALLY tough. I have this 6 mile route that I run, which is mostly uphill, but it never felt this hard. Actually, around mile 4, I was like "I aint running this marathon... I aint gettin paid for this pain... when is it going to be over?"

So all in all, I got in 18 miles today!! Its something that I have never done before... and I was running for 2 hours and 30 minutes total!!!!!!!!!! Wow!!! But I did get a toe blister and a near bleeding nipple for the ordeal. LOL. I'm taking tomorrow TOTALLY off, doing a quality workout on Wednesday, and not running again til my 20 miler on Saturday. Wish me luck... so I run on...