Rejoice, she conquers!!

A leaf I saw on the very beginning of my run. Drops of water were so pretty!!

So I've now attempted three 20 mile training runs. If you want, you can read my other fails HERE and HERE. Today was the first one that I've ever successfully completed. And I'm incredibly happy about that!! The weather finally worked in my favour on these tries.

Follow this link to see an animated version of my run using Garmin's Player feature. Pretty sweet! Kinda even puts in my pauses too.

I attended a Kane County Cougar game last night for a friend's birthday. We then went back to her parents house for some more celebrating. I kept the beer drinking to a minimum. Went back to the hotel around 1 am. I immediately went to sleep but decided that I was going to let my body wake me up whenever. I knew that my friends were going to come out to DeKalb sometime for lunch and hopefully I'll be able to meet up with them but I knew and they understood that I must get my 20 mile run in.

I got back to DeKalb around 10:30 am. Got dressed and when checking my email, I saw that a runner in NITRO sent out an email saying that he was going to run my regular route for his 20 miles, between 1st Street and Rt. 23. He figured 8 times for doing so. On the way to DeKalb, I figured it was a 2.5 mile jaunt one way and that's why he figured 8 times. But when I got to running it, I stopped and took a picture of the map that they have. One way is only 1.29 miles. So I figured out quickly that I'll do my regular route which is about 5 miles and do that 4 times.

The great thing about this is that I got some "hills" in. It's not exactly the flatest route like Great Western Trail. But it's not exactly hills either. More like slight elevation change. It really happened once I went off my trail and onto the sidewalks of the neighbourhood loop. Going down the sidewalks, crossing any roads and then back up hurt. Especially on the 3rd loop. The entire loop was actually 5.2 miles.

On the final loop, I decided to skip the neighbourhood run since the sidewalks stopping at the roads were hard on my legs. It didn't hurt my mileage though. I still was able to get 20 miles out of it, mainly becasue of the .2 miles that the route was from start to end.

I had Jelly Belly Watermelon on the route. Had my first Gu gel, Triberry which wasn't too bad. I really don't think I like any gels now that I've had the bloks. I also had PowerBar Gel Blasts, cola flavoured and they are great!! I loved them! Tasted great and wasn't as sticky on the teeth as the ClifBar Shot Bloks. I can't wait to find more of them! I also had my 4 bottle water belt. I was really good about limiting my drinking near the beginning because of the overcast weather. But then the sun came out and I started drinking more. Luckily, on the start of my final loop, I saw a hose hooked up to a facuet in front of some condos. I turned it on and filled up my 3 empty water bottles. I knew I would need them in final 4 miles.

My friends Rob, Chris and Melissa met up for lunch in Sycamore (a town bordering DeKalb) but were done while I was just on my 4th loop. I stopped at 18.34 miles to look at a text message Rob sent and stretch a bit. I asked if Rob could meet me at my place in 20 minutes as he was leaving for Missouri soon. I started cramping pretty bad while stretching; calves, thighs, hamstrings. He agreed to meet me and was sending me text messages how I was a superstar and telling me that I can do it. As I was coming up to the end, I sent a text back saying that I was crossing Bethany. He sent one back to me saying that he thinks he sees me. As I just crossed Bethany, I saw him and waved my arms. The cars probably thought I was stupid but they didn't know how close I was to the end. I started tearing up. Rob was running towards me and then he ran back to me and we ran the last .2 miles together.

And so I did it. My first successful 20 mile run. I've never hurt so bad after a run as this before. Rob and I went upstairs to my apartment but I couldn't stay up there, not enough room to walk. So back out we went. On the second loop of my parking lot, I started cramping. I think that's from not having enough salt in my body. I wasn't drinking any Gatorade. I'll need to buy a few bottles I guess.

Rob soon left and I hopped into a cold water bath. Didn't stay cold for too long though. My body was just so warm. I stayed in for quite a bit of time, enjoying this new feeling of accomplishment! Rob pointed out that I should order a pizza. And as I'm typing this, I ordered a medium pizza with onions, green peppers and red peppers and now chewing down. 3 slices left! Will I eat it all or should I wait for later?

Either way, I'm sitting here trying to keep my legs moving whilst typing this out. I do plan on going out this evening and celebrating!! I can't wait. I'll have a slight limp but shall be OK anyway. And then sleeping in tomorrow! Just hope I won't hurt too bad when getting up!

Just to tease myself, I went ahead and calculated how fast I would run a marathon if I did a 10:11 min/mi pace in it. That would end up being a 4:26!! I would finally have my under 4:30 marathon! While I don't think I could keep that pace up, it would be great to finally get that.

Beside the usual muscle soreness, the bottoms of my feet were burning. Specifically the pad under my big toe. I'm starting to think that the shoes are too wide for me? Supposedly these are narrow. But my feet keep sliding around and causing rubbing? Not sure. I do have a blister on the side of my big toe. That came from my 16 mile run and 3rd run in these shoes. Now it'll go down and then I run and it'll come right back. But I don't feel this particular blister on my run. Today it was just the rubbing of the bottom of my feet that hurt me pretty bad. And actually it was almost making me want to stop. I've got to fix this problem fast!! I'm thinking of popping this blister and getting it done and over with.

My lovely blister that keeps coming back!! :(

Below are my Garmin stats. Not too shabby. :)

Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 859 ft Location: DeKalb, IL Elev. Gain: -4 ft Date: 08/29/09 Up/Downhill: [+734/-738] Time: 11:14 AM Difficulty: 3.9 / 5.0 Weather: Mostly Cloudy 64 F temp; 69% humidity 64 F heat index; winds W 12 G 22 Performance Distance: 20.00 miles Time: 3:23:43 Speed: 5.9 mph Pace: 10' 11 /mi Calories: 2143 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 9' 23 -0' 48 6.4 +0.5 +36 ft 2 9' 52 -0' 19 6.1 +0.2 -17 ft 3 9' 33 -0' 38 6.3 +0.4 -7 ft 4 9' 55 -0' 16 6.0 +0.2 +3 ft 5 9' 54 -0' 17 6.1 +0.2 +3 ft 6 9' 53 -0' 18 6.1 +0.2 +6 ft 7 10' 16 +0' 05 5.8 -0.1 -10 ft 8 9' 45 -0' 26 6.2 +0.3 -6 ft 9 10' 02 -0' 09 6.0 +0.1 +3 ft 10 9' 53 -0' 18 6.1 +0.2 +16 ft 11 9' 52 -0' 19 6.1 +0.2 0 ft 12 10' 07 -0' 04 5.9 +0.0 -3 ft 13 10' 09 -0' 02 5.9 +0.0 -23 ft 14 12' 05 +1' 54 5.0 -0.9 -17 ft 15 10' 29 +0' 18 5.7 -0.2 +42 ft 16 10' 21 +0' 10 5.8 -0.1 -3 ft 17 12' 05 +1' 54 5.0 -0.9 +7 ft 18 10' 03 -0' 08 6.0 +0.1 -23 ft 19 14' 23 +4' 12 4.2 -1.7 +36 ft end 9' 53 -0' 18 6.1 +0.2 -23 ft Versus average of 10' 11 min/mile

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Categories: 20 mile run, DeKalb Nature Trail, pictures