Haha… that was so not the case, but I couldn’t resist the title. 🙂 Unfortunately I did not sleep well Saturday night due to a snoring dog whom I was dogsitting. I was not looking forward to a run, much less an 18 mile run — what have I gotten myself into? I am too far into this training to not run, so off I went.
For the last several weeks, I have actually been running without music. It has become “ME” time, time to think, time to work out the world’s problems, and just time to let my mind wonder. About five miles into my run, it dawned on me that I still had an entire half marathon yet to run — I think I made some loud noise as I startled a biker coming up on me. I was spending all my energy on running, so I didn’t even say anything to the runner. Haha… he probably thought I was a little crazy.
Thirteen miles into my run… I was at a crossroad and could have gone back to my car and made it a 14 miler or I could go on. I decided I needed to do this, so I continued running. I surprised myself when I hit 16 miles and was several minutes faster from my time from last week. I ended up running just shy of 18 miles, with a total of 17.85 miles and an 8 second faster pace than my run last weekend.
I am currently thinking it is realistic for me to finish the marathon in 5 hours, 30 minutes. I can do this.
After my run, I decided to sit in an ice bath to cut down on the swelling. I have read about this from several other runners and decided to give it a try. I can say it was a bit of torture to make myself sit in this icy water, but worth trying.
I can say while the process was not fun… you can see me easing into the icy cold water, I do believe it does help. I was hardly sore at all today, not sure I will do it after each run, but maybe.
2 more long runs before the marathon… I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!!
Learning with Liz 