My First 20 Miler

I wanted to share my experience with my first 20 mile training run that I completed this past weekend.

The day started at 6:10am... I had a schedule that I needed to keep so early morning was a necessity. I got up and had my usual oatmeal for breakfast and a cup of coffee. I was packed up and on the road by 7:30am to drive the 40 minutes to the park where I wanted to run. This park has a hike/bike trail loop that is a little more than 8 miles around. I love heading out there for my longer runs because it reduces the number of "loops" or "back and forths" I have to do to get my mileage in.

The goal was to run it easy and complete it with an average of 10:00 minutes per mile. I started out around a 9:50 pace and tried to slow it down, but I just kinda settled into that faster pace and decided to stick with it. I setup some milestones to keep myself sane for the 3 hours I knew I would be out there running. First milestone was mile 5, where I would consume my first energy gel! Normally I used the energy chews, but I decided to switch it up to the gel from now on. It worked really great and not too bad taste wise either.

Next milestone was only another 3ish miles where I would pass by my car and make sure my second water bottle was still sitting on my windshield... yes! it was still there, no one stole it!! :)

Ok, now I just have to get to mile 10 where I get to do two things, how exciting! Mile 10 is my turn around point where I'll retrace my route to finish the 20 miles, yes, halfway!! Second thing, energy gel number two was consumed, yum! And quite a surge of energy comes with that too.

Next stop, I'll pass by my car in another mile and a half and I can switch out my water bottle for a fresh one. This worked out really well since I was parked right next to the path I was running on. I swung into the parking lot, ditched the old and grabbed the new. It took only a couple seconds and I was basically still moving, woohoo! Now I just have to do the full loop back in the opposite direction and I'm done.

At this point I'm thinking about how I ONLY have 8.5 miles left and in another 2.5 miles I get another energy gel. Yes! Did I really just think to myself that I ONLY have 8.5 miles left? I can remember when I couldn't even run 8.5 miles! Ok, so at mile 15 I sucked down another energy gel, Mocha something, not bad and gave me a caffeine boost.

Alright, now we are talking only 5 miles to go!! This is nothing, less than a 10k! I was so excited I even picked up the pace a little more and averaged several of those later miles under 9:40! Amazing! By this time I'm pretty much counting down each mile and watching for the landmarks that I knew would be coming and showing that I'm getting close.

When I finally crossed the last bridge and had the final curves to finish the last mile I was so excited. I could not believe that I managed to finish this 20 mile run AND I did it with an average 9:45 pace! 15 seconds per mile faster than I had planned and expected to complete the run. Such an amazing run!

I did some stretching, had some food and re-hydrated before heading back home where I finally succeeded in a full ice bath (minus the ice!).

Tune in next week when I tackle a 24 mile run and MUST run it at a 10:00 min pace so I get the most out of the training run! :) 5 weeks to the Marathon!!