What's Two More Miles, Really?

Sunday brought sun, then some clouds, then just sun, a chilly breeze (at times), and a planned 19 mile run to Medina. So, the fact that the run extended itself by 2 miles wasn't unpleasant at all. I had plenty of fluids, gels, and layers to deal with alternating hot, cold, and thirst. I even had a bit of Cliff Bar for when I got hungry. Of course I paid for that with about 10 minutes of stomach pain, but that was really the only snag in the day. That, and somehow my Garmin turned off. I must have hit the power button when putting my top layer back on at one point because when I looked down, it was off. By the time it powered back up, it was reading at least a half mile behind. Oh well.

It looks like we averaged an 8:37 per mile pace overall, but that included a quarter mile cool-down walk at the end. We could have gone the full 26.2 if we wanted to. It felt really good out there. And that makes me very hopeful for a good showing in May. I still have three more 20+ mile runs planned before race day. I'm just going to need to order some Powergels and Gatorade Endurance because I can't find them locally.

The course we ran was atypical, with lots of uphills toward the end. Normally it's nice to get those out of the way early. But I didn't mind them too much. Call me crazy, but I like hills on the long runs. Just as long as we're not trying to set any records running up them. Maybe that's why I like the Akron Marathon so much. I really need to decide what I'm going to do there, half or full.

I also had my first 40 mile week last week, thanks to the extra mileage Sunday. I'm beginning to believe that if I can keep this up for the next month, a sub-3:30 marathon shouldn't be impossible. Now, I just need to get back into the pool. I've been running at the expense of the other disciplines for a while now.