Let's run a marathon (Recap Week 11 of 16)

Oh hey, 18.6 miles. Nice to meet you. You’re a lot more painful than I thought you’d be. But nonetheless, I ran you. Yes, yesterday I had ventured further into the unknown at the “Just a Short Run” race. That name is anything but since I did my first 30K. Here’s the lowdown of the week, and yesterday’s run.

How I’m feeling this week:
IN PAIN. I’m not going to sugar-coat it. Last week’s soreness just turned into straight-up pain. It’s not the kind of pain where I need to see a doctor and stop running or anything. My legs and hips just hurt. I wake up in the morning and feel stiff. Driving hurts my hips. My shins randomly have sharp pains in them. However, it’s nothing a little ice and stretching can’t fix. Plus more running. Surprisingly, once I start running and hit about mile 4, I feel good. Until that is I hit about mile 14, then the real fun happens…more pain!
What I ran this week:

• Tuesday, 3/27: 5.01 miles, 50:56 (10:10 average pace), treadmill (including 10 minutes TUT – 4.5 incline)
• Thursday, 3/29: 8.65 miles, 1:33:48 (10:47 average pace), rolling roads (including part of marathon course)
• Saturday, 3/31: 19.59 miles (Garmin), 3:15:41 (9:59 average pace), rolling roads (North Park Lake Loop for Just a Short Run). In actuality, it was 18.6 miles so my Garmin is just a bit off.

TOTAL: 33.24 miles, 5:40:25 (on par with my training schedule)

 LONG RUN SPLITS:

My splits were a little all over the place, but I was glad not to have any mile over 11 minutes, even when I hit the wall at about mile 15ish.

How I cross-trained this week:
60 minutes hot vinyasa yoga
15 minutes Nike Training Club app – core burner
Stretching, stretching, and more stretching — although I don’t believe that’s technically cross training
What I ate:
Day Before:
Breakfast:
Bowl of Kashi Go Lean Crunch with half a banana and blueberries
Coffee
Lunch:
Slice of pizza
Broccoli
Quinoa
Happy Hour:
1 Stella Artois (hydration and carbs, I swear!)
Dinner:
2 breadsticks
Lots of salad
Pasta with shrimp and peppers
(Olive Garden, baby!)
+lots of water all day
Long run day:
Breakfast:
Bagel with sunflower butter
1.5 cups of coffee
Banana
Water
During the run:
Water
Gatorade
1 Gu (chocolate w/ caffeine)
(I drank water or Gatorade at about every other aide station)
Immediately after run:
Water
Half of a banana
Chex Mix
After run breakfast/lunch/whatever you want to call it:
Chocolate milk
Water
Turkey sausage
French Toast
Some loaded cheese fries
Dinner:
3 beers (oops)
Bacon cheeseburger
Some potato skins
Clearly I was NOT thinking healthy after the run. But I ran 18 miles…
Roadblocks this week:
The pain is definitely a roadblock. Both during the week and during my long run. But I managed to meet my training plan this week as I should.
Goals for the week ahead:
My goal last week was to increase the cross training, but with all the running I’m doing plus working and having a life, it’s tough. I think one class per week, whether it be yoga or spinning, plus some at-home stuff is doable for me and my schedule. So my goal this week is to maintain that cross training. I also hope to have my soreness from yesterday’s run be gone by Tuesday. I scheduled a sports massage at Verve Wellness Salon tomorrow to help this!
This week’s running topic: Let’s talk about long runs
So let’s talk in more detail about yesterday’s race. It was definitely a good practice for d-day, a.k.a the marathon. I highly recommend if you’re training for a race to participate in a “trial run” before your race day. Yesterday, runners had the option of doing a 5K, 8.1 mile run, half marathon, or 30K, so no matter what level you were at, you could run. I did 15 miles the other week, so this run was now my longest yet. Two things I learned: I need to get myself better mentally in the game and I need to intake more during the long runs.
The mental: Because there was so many different lengths of runs yesterday, people were finishing before me left and right. This was hard to see. I still had 10 more miles to go, yet so many people were done and walking past me. Also, since we had to loop North Park three times, I crossed the finish line two times before my actual finish. Again, not something good to see mentally. It psyched me out a bit. Once we crossed the half marathon threshold, I did the next mile just fine, then sort of hit the wall. I was hurting, and felt like my legs were going to give out. I ran with Autumn and Russell, and they continued the pace, while I slowed down because I was in pain. I was mentally thinking “I just want to stop. I want to go home and take a shower and lay down.” Finally, when they were ahead of me and we only had about two more miles to run, I snapped myself out of it, got positive, and finished. I need to think more positive on my next long runs and be more mentally tough, and this should help me run strong.
The intake: I only took 1 Gu the entire race yesterday. Not good. When you’re running for that long, your body needs more calories to stay strong. I literally felt Charlie Horses in my legs when I was hitting the wall. I felt like they were going to give out. I knew I needed more gel, but I just didn’t want to reach into my Spibelt and get it.  No excuses next time. I need those calories. They could have helped me for the last leg of the race. I need to take at least 3 Gus for my 20-miler, and then 4 for the marathon itself.
Next up — dropping down to about 15, 16 miles for my next long run, then in 2 weeks it’s dress rehearsal with a 20-miler.
Past recaps:
Week 10
Week 9
Week 8
Week 7
Week 6
Week 5
Week 4
Week 3
Week 2
Week 1
Pre-training post with my 16-week training schedule