LRM TR #38, 22 Miles On Hwy. 67

LRM Miles Trained To Date: 245

Today's 22 mile run was the longest I have ever ran. And it is the longest I'll run before my marathon, which is eight weeks away. The completion of this week of training marks the "turning over to the next page" of my training schedule. That's huge to me! I'm done with one whole 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper's worth of training runs! That is 11 weeks worth. I completed 38 of the 44 scheduled runs. Not too shabby! I know for sure that four of the missed runs were due to illness. The other two missed runs have "lazy" written in their spots. Ha!

Mid-afternoon on Thursday a lightbulb went off in my head. After all of these weeks of training, plus two half marathons before this, I have never even considered front-loading my calories. What I mean is, the day before a longrun I eat about the same as any other day... but I try to make sure it's all carbs and protein - just a well-balanced day. Then, after the run, I eat eat eat (but mostly the day after, which I have yet to figure out). So, from mid-Thursday to this morning I ate everything I possibly could. I ate a huge pasta dish on Thursday night (all of it). On Friday I ate my normal breakfast and lunch, but I also ate bagels with peanut butter all afternoon. I had a good dinner and then some ice cream (because ice cream is sooooo good for running, right?) I think I ate twice the calories that I normally would. I was hoping to avoid that "out of fuel" feeling on the run today. I think it worked! Now, finally, I am a believer in front-loading my calories.

I got up about an hour before I intended to start running today. I ate some breakfast, and then just before leaving I downed a power bar. I thought surely I'd have enough fuel in me! I made a peanut butter on multi-grain bread sandwich for mid-run. I armed myself with a water bottle (infused with a fitness packet) and sport beans. I wasn't even three houses away when I realized that my iPod wasn't working. Oh no! (I'll figure that one out later on today.) So I came hope for my "antique" MP3 player. I listened to my favorite radio station the whole time out there.

Oh the places I saw! I ran through Benton (where I live), Haskell (which should be called Haskhill or Haskhell, I tell you!), to the next county (Hot Spring County, no 's'), Glen Rose (which went on forever), then my husband arrived. It was at mile 14.2 or so.

Announcement! My half-marathon time today was faster than that of the World Wide Half Marathon!!!!! Back to business...

I felt very, very strong out there today, at least up to this point. I was taking the hills in stride (except the monster ones). I felt "fueled" and confident. I was thinking about all of the friends I'd be reporting to, today through Monday at work. I was thinking about my friend Marathon Chris (www.marathonchris.blogspot.com) who would be running the Disney Marathon. I was running with her in spirit!

So I met my husband, ate my pb sandwich and switched to a new water bottle. He took the photo as I was running away. I didn't request or need much of a massage out there today! Yay!

I knew that when I left him I'd be fairly close to the next town, Perla. WRONG! It took forever to get to Perla. But I finally did... and that was great because it was just a mile or two to my final destination - Malvern. My husband works in Malvern, so I knew that this would be the perfect 22 mile course for me.

Along the road, somewhere, I took off my gloves and stuffed them into my pants packets. As I finally came into Malvern I was looking like crazy for my husband. I had about 1.5 miles to go and he was nowhere in sight. I thought surely he wouldn't just be waiting at the end! Well I got all the way to the end of the 22 miles and realized that I was all alone in a downtown, 22 miles from home. I called him and got no answer. Odd, very odd. I began walking (hobbling was more like it) down Main Street. He called minutes later. He had been delayed at Home Depot while buying paint; our painter buddy is back today trying to beautify our home. He was on his way to get me.

I realized it was silly to walk too much farther; it hurt, and he could easily pick me up anywhere. So I parked it in front of the empty Streets Department building. Twenty minutes later my chariot arrived. We swung by his work so he could check on some projects. While waiting for him to come back out I realized that I was missing a glove. Oh no! Those neato gloves were a present from him. We retraced my steps back over a mile and found the missing glove. My eagle eyes spotted it in front of a car wash. Now I don't have to go running while looking like Michael Jackson. Ha!

Mile 1: 11:48
Mile 2: 12:04
Mile 3: 12:24
Mile 4: 12:49
Mile 5: 12:09
Mile 6: 12:39
Mile 7: 12:34
Mile 8: 13:07
Mile 9: 12:56
Mile 10: 13:13
Mile 11: 12:24
Mile 12: 12:44
Mile 13: 12:52
Mile 14: 12:54
Mile 15: 11:48 (wow!)
Mile 16: 13:32
Mile 17: 14:13 (hill, I'm sure)
Mile 18: 15:12 (hills hills hills)
Mile 19: 13:10
Mile 20: 13:42
Mile 21: 13:30
Mile 22: 12:30
Total: 4:44:24
Average: 12:56 per mile
Calories burned: 3273

I am just pleased as punch with today's run. I am feeling much more confident about the marathon now. I have to thank EVERYONE for their continued support!

I told my coworker yesterday that it's all in the attitude. That, plus "Obese Friday," as I'm calling it, really seemed to make a difference today. It was GREAT!