Another Wintery 20 Miler

Week 9

45 miles, speed during long run of 20 miles (fast finish long run with around 4 miles at goal marathon pace), running 6 days.

3/26/2023

I’m going to take a rest day to give my groin a break and hope for an easy 3-4 tomorrow. I can always take an extra rest day and move my 20 miler to the weekend rather than midweek, like I had been planning. I may not hit my 45 miles this week but I would rather be healthy than struggling with an injury.

Okay, so I changed my mind. After I went to church I decided to do an arms and ab workout. The treadmill was sitting there looking lonely, so I gave it a go. I went extremely slow for 4 miles, stretched and then iced my sore spot. I guess I’ll see if this was a wise choice or not. Tomorrow is a scheduled rest day. I’ll have to plan my running day to day.

3/28/2023

My legs are feeling pretty normal, usual right hip tightness that I’ve been continuing to work out with strength and stretching. I took a rest day on Monday, ran 6 on the treadmill after work yesterday, plus completed abs, arms and glute/hip workout. Today cranked out another 5 on the treadmill and focused more on stretching.

Looking at the weather and our family schedule for the rest of the week I’ve decided to go for my second 20 miler tomorrow morning (Thursday). Winter is hanging on and it will feel like 0 when I start but should end up close to a feels like of 19 by the time I finish. We are expecting snow Thursday afternoon into Friday and a 20 mph wind, so hopefully the snow and wind will hold off tomorrow morning!

The rest of the day I’m going to drink water, eat a healthy dinner with carbs and protein, tonight I’ll have oatmeal or cereal before bed and drink a Liquid IV. The tricky part tomorrow will be hydration with the temps being low. It's hard to carry a water bottle and my fingers lose dexterity by the end of my run, so getting things out of my Flipbelt is challenging.

3/30/2023

The temps were slightly warmer than predicted and it felt like 4 Fahrenheit. My running “coach”, one of my closest friends from college who qualified for Boston in her 20s and is my sounding board for all things running, advised me to be prepared for a slower run with the cooler temps.

I had my usual cereal and half a cup of coffee around 6:30. I liked the one scoop of UCAN with a peanut butter sandwich combination from last week, so 45 minutes before I started running I slowly worked on that, dropped my kids off at school and finished layering my clothes. I wore an earband, hat, tank top, running sleeves, long sleeve, light jacket, neck gaiter, gloves, mittens, Flipbelt, compression shorts, thick leggings, Features no show Elite socks, tall socks over the top and my Asics Kayanos.

The first 5 miles I was into the wind my face and thighs were slightly cold but not bad. Mile 5 I started drinking Tailwind, which I had mixed at full dose. I experimented with applesauce and UCAN edge. I’ve decided that I prefer Tailwind that is more diluted and I just can’t handle the applesauce and UCAN edge.

Mile 10 I was feeling like I needed the bathroom and I certainly didn’t want to wet my pants when it felt like 4 degrees! So I did a quick stop at my house and then went back out.

I did not have a course planned and just ran on random roads. Mile 14 I started to mentally prepare myself to increase speed. I took some extra swigs of Tailwind and slowed my pace. At the start of Mile 16 I slowly picked up the pace and hit marathon pace! I ran approximately 3.5 miles at marathon pace and it felt better running faster than it felt running slow. I slowed down for the last mile and a half to do a bit of a cooldown. I opted to run 3.5 rather than 4 miles at marathon pace because I wanted to be able to finish my 20 miler and wasn’t confident that I could keep going if I kept pushing it.

Once I got home nausea hit hard! I contemplated bringing salt tablets with me on my run but decided against it because it was cold and I had Tailwind. I chewed down two tablets and sipped water, and felt better within a few minutes.

The feels like temp when I finished was 20, HEAT WAVE!! I am ready for winter to be done, bring on 50 degree runs. The snow was so high on one the roads that the stop sign looked like it was buried.

I’m overall satisfied with the run and pace. I did stretching and rolling, then went on with the rest of my day. Easy run tomorrow. More winter, wind and lots of snow predicted for next week, plus Easter and a trip to Bismarck to see my sister.