The Long Run

I love sleeping in. Getting up at 6am on Saturdays to do my long run is not an easy thing for me, and I've been doing it now for well over a year. In order to stay in bed as long as possible, I set out everything I'll need the night before. This weekend's long run is one I've been looking forward to for quite a while with both excitement and anxiety. 20 miles....the longest run before tapering for the Marathon on 4/16 and also a new distance record for me. We did 18 a few weeks ago and it was a particularly difficult run for me with some knee pain and a little limping at the end!

The Fuel

I have learned that most things worth doing come with a little opposition.

Enter: a severe thunderstorm that starts at 3am Saturday morning. With no end to the rain in sight, we were determined to run anyway. We DID delay our start for 2 hours to allow the hail and lightning portion of the storm to pass.

The Weather

We headed out to do 2 laps of this 10 mile route and ended up reversing the direction for the 2nd lap just to mix it up a little.

The Route

I'm not gonna lie. The conditions were brutal. We were soaking wet within the first few miles and our socks gushed with every step. Temps were right around freezing the the freezing rain stung our faces. But we'd decided that we were going to kill this run no matter what, so we may as well enjoy it. The rain eased up a bit in the second lap, which did not go unnoticed. We were extremely grateful for a reprieve and to be dealing just with 20+mph wind that was dry!

We told each other that the nice thing about doing this run in extreme conditions was knowing that race day would be better/easier. Not only were we super ecstatic to finish our run in <4 hours, we couldn't believe how good we felt. We finished strong, running the inclines, and felt like we definitely could've run 6 more miles if it were race day. That Friday visit to the chiropractor was just what I needed!

The Time

We've been using a White Oak Gas Station as our home base to fill water bottles, use the bathroom, etc., so buying a Diet Coke after the run was the least I could to patronize the business, right?

These girls just ran 20 miles!

We were soaking wet, so we went immediately to Chick-fil-A and stuffed our faces with salty chicken noodle soup and fries!

Next Saturday is the Bentonville Half Marathon, where I will not be setting any records after pushing myself to 20 miles this week, but will very much enjoy the taper. And the next Saturday we get to do our favorite 8 mile run.

Have I told you how much I love the taper?