I swear my 20 mile runs never go the way I planned. The last one I attempted was November 19. I understand the cold in November. Today is March 28. I don't understand the 30F degree weather & brutal cold wind today.
This morning I stated on Twitter that I already knew the run was not going to go well. I just wasn't feeling it. It was 28 with a wind chill of 19, 17 mph ENE winds, my mind was already full of negative thoughts. I just wanted to stay in bed and sleep.
I got ready anyway. Ate a bowl of oatmeal and a PowerBar Harvest. Dressed like it was February and not the end of March. I drove up to the start of the Great Western Bike Path. Got all situated and took off.
The first 1/2 mile was fine, I was in woods and didn't feel the wind. After that though, it was all downhill. I swear to you, I wanted to walk within the first 2 miles. I stopped at some point early on and took out the rocks that I could feel in my shoes. I let the guy running behind me pass. He was the same one I saw a few weeks ago. I stayed with him for quite a bit. Then we came up to 6 miles. I was debating in my head at 5.5 of just going the extra mile to 7 miles and then I'll turn around but once I got to 6 miles, I stopped and just couldn't go on anymore.
I turned around and headed on back. The wind was finally at my back, kinda. It was coming from the East/Northeast and I was heading west. But I still wasn't feeling like the wind was helping any. From this point on, I pretty much stopped for a short break after every mile. Until mile 10. After that, it was pretty often.
I got back to the start just after 12 miles. I decided to run back out til I was out of the woods and then it got windy so I turned around, that gave me over 13 and I stopped again. Decided to go back out a little ways and try to get around 13.5. I finished with 13.6 miles. Oh well. I was also a snotty mess and didn't bring my snot rag with me. When I got back tot he car I noticed that I had snot all over my balaclava and of course I used my jacket to blow my nose. Ick ick ick. I didn't have my running jacket (zipper got stuck so it's a seamstress getting fixed so I was wearing one that was cotton but I didn't get overheated or anything) and this jacket was way too big but the bigness came in handy when it came to blowing my nose!
The mental fail part was because I knew it was 20 miles. Even just the sound of it is daunting. Let alone doing it. I tried to think of it as a 3:20 minute run instead but even that didn't help. The weather of course affected my thoughts too. It's the last Saturday in March, it should be nice weather! Average high is 44, average low is 26. The winds also got to me. I compared last weeks run weather conditions to that of northern Illinois. It was 12 mph winds and only like 4 or 5 mph in southern Illinois.
The physical aspects of today's run came from the fact that I think I'm overtrained. Since February I have been adding mileage to my long runs without a step back week. And I have been adding 2 miles at a time to the long run. My legs are tired. So with that, this will be the start of my taper. My race is in 3 weeks now anyway.
Next Saturday, has me running with Erin. I'm looking forward to it! She's in her taper for the Illinois Half Marathon in 2 weeks. We'll be running together on her path, which looks great after seenig the pictures she's posted.
I'm tired. I actually feel napping and I haven't felt like in a while! Overall, I just hope that I'll be able to run 26 miles and I won't have this feeling again. Maybe this marathon will be my last.
Someone's Gatorade stash. It was actually under the grass a bit so I have a feeling it's been there a while.
Not a very good shot, but you can see the green buds starting to come out on the bushes/trees!
This is the beginning of my path. See the woods. Oh so very nice!
And this is after 1/2 mile into it. It opens up and then you get nothing but wind. Grr., not fun.
Stats:
This morning I stated on Twitter that I already knew the run was not going to go well. I just wasn't feeling it. It was 28 with a wind chill of 19, 17 mph ENE winds, my mind was already full of negative thoughts. I just wanted to stay in bed and sleep.
I got ready anyway. Ate a bowl of oatmeal and a PowerBar Harvest. Dressed like it was February and not the end of March. I drove up to the start of the Great Western Bike Path. Got all situated and took off.
The first 1/2 mile was fine, I was in woods and didn't feel the wind. After that though, it was all downhill. I swear to you, I wanted to walk within the first 2 miles. I stopped at some point early on and took out the rocks that I could feel in my shoes. I let the guy running behind me pass. He was the same one I saw a few weeks ago. I stayed with him for quite a bit. Then we came up to 6 miles. I was debating in my head at 5.5 of just going the extra mile to 7 miles and then I'll turn around but once I got to 6 miles, I stopped and just couldn't go on anymore.
I turned around and headed on back. The wind was finally at my back, kinda. It was coming from the East/Northeast and I was heading west. But I still wasn't feeling like the wind was helping any. From this point on, I pretty much stopped for a short break after every mile. Until mile 10. After that, it was pretty often.
I got back to the start just after 12 miles. I decided to run back out til I was out of the woods and then it got windy so I turned around, that gave me over 13 and I stopped again. Decided to go back out a little ways and try to get around 13.5. I finished with 13.6 miles. Oh well. I was also a snotty mess and didn't bring my snot rag with me. When I got back tot he car I noticed that I had snot all over my balaclava and of course I used my jacket to blow my nose. Ick ick ick. I didn't have my running jacket (zipper got stuck so it's a seamstress getting fixed so I was wearing one that was cotton but I didn't get overheated or anything) and this jacket was way too big but the bigness came in handy when it came to blowing my nose!
The mental fail part was because I knew it was 20 miles. Even just the sound of it is daunting. Let alone doing it. I tried to think of it as a 3:20 minute run instead but even that didn't help. The weather of course affected my thoughts too. It's the last Saturday in March, it should be nice weather! Average high is 44, average low is 26. The winds also got to me. I compared last weeks run weather conditions to that of northern Illinois. It was 12 mph winds and only like 4 or 5 mph in southern Illinois.
The physical aspects of today's run came from the fact that I think I'm overtrained. Since February I have been adding mileage to my long runs without a step back week. And I have been adding 2 miles at a time to the long run. My legs are tired. So with that, this will be the start of my taper. My race is in 3 weeks now anyway.
Next Saturday, has me running with Erin. I'm looking forward to it! She's in her taper for the Illinois Half Marathon in 2 weeks. We'll be running together on her path, which looks great after seenig the pictures she's posted.
I'm tired. I actually feel napping and I haven't felt like in a while! Overall, I just hope that I'll be able to run 26 miles and I won't have this feeling again. Maybe this marathon will be my last.
Someone's Gatorade stash. It was actually under the grass a bit so I have a feeling it's been there a while.
Not a very good shot, but you can see the green buds starting to come out on the bushes/trees!
This is the beginning of my path. See the woods. Oh so very nice!
And this is after 1/2 mile into it. It opens up and then you get nothing but wind. Grr., not fun.My Garmin stats. If you notice, I was keeping a pretty even pace. Which I didn't know until I saw this. I wasn't looking at my Garmin, I was afraid of what I would see! However, they don't count the stops I had to make. So if you want to count those, then go with my Bones in Motion stats.
Stats:
Activity
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