20 Miles!!!

Well I did it! I really did it!
20 miles, and I didn’t cry, or bleed, or collapse, or vomit. So I am calling it a success.

I was really nervous going into this run, considering that I had not been able to complete our last long run. Last time, my right knee gave out on me at mile 12 and Scooter had to come back and get me in the car (for those of you that are keeping track that is not the knee that was bothering me when we began marathon training). It was a very frustrating situation. I felt defeated and unsure of myself, convinced that I would never be able to finish 26.2 miles if my knee couldn’t carry me for 12.

But I was told that the day of the marathon I will be so excited and so determined that I will be able to run without feet if I need to.

I went to the doctor anyway. Turns out there is nothing wrong with my knees, the knee caps (on both knees) pull to the outside, which causes a little extra wear and tear, but nothing serious. The conclusion was that my knee was just tired of running that day. So with a lot of ice, and a lot of rest I was hoping I was ready for my 20 mile long run.

So we met at 5:45 at Austin High, thankfully we were going to run a fairly flat course with at least 14 miles of it on the Lady Bird Lake Trail (formerly known as Town Lake), which would be nice and soft on our joints. The entire run was pretty uneventful for me. I realized at about mile 6 that my nerves had been making me incredibly tense, because I was running with my shoulders up at my ear lobes. I forced myself to relax and knew immediately, from the shooting pain in my upper back, that I was going to regret not noticing and correcting myself earlier.

At about mile 12 my hip starting bothering me again, which I have since come to find out is my "peri-something" muscle in my butt. At mile 12 I felt a little discouraged because it felt like we should have been at 14 at least. But I took a Power Bar Runners Goo, hoping it would help a little. A half hour later, the Goo hit me! My body was exhausted but my mind was ready to go. At mile 16 I got really excited, ONLY 4 MILES to go! Easy, right?

Well the next 2 miles hurt a lot, we were still on the trail, but I could feel every little pebble I stepped on, and man those pebbles hurt. But suddenly, there we were, mile 18.
Now I was really excited, ONLY 2 MILES. I could do that in my sleep, 2 miles was easy and I was feeling GREAT. Okay, maybe not great, but I was still running, which I was actually pretty surprised at. With 1.5 miles to go I took off into a sprint, well, I am sure you couldn’t call it a sprint at that point, but it felt that way. I knew the finish was just up ahead and I was almost there. I had completed 20 miles. I had really done it.

I headed to Barton Springs and jumped into the 63 degree natural spring that morning and treaded water for as long as my tired muscles could stand it. Then I went home and packed for Dallas. Scooter was coming back from Houston to pick me up and take me to the Texas State Fair so that I could have my VER FIRST CORN DOG. Yes, ladies and gentleman, that is right, I had never had a corn dog. But that is a different story for a different time.

Scooter ran 15 miles that morning in Houston, and was feeling pretty good. I talked to our Coach about him and she said that studies have shown most men only have to train up to a 16 mile run (which we have both done before) in order to be able to complete 26.2 miles. Women on the other hand need to train at 18 or 20 miles to have the same results. How UNFAIR is that. Oh well.

So now we have started our “back down” or “tapering” we have just over 2 weeks until the marathon. I am really excited, as is Scooter. We are trying not to let the fact that we are $3000 short of our fundraising commitment get us too down. $3000 is worth the experience and training, or at least I keep telling myself that. Now might be a good time to make a last ditch effort for fundraising,,, HELP, we need money!! (if that doesn’t work, I don’t know what will, hahaha)

Well thank you to everyone who has donated, and everyone who has helped support us through our training. It means so much, and I can hardly believe that it is almost over. I have no idea what I am going to do with myself after October 21st. Maybe I should start thinking about the wedding.