Ran On Christmas Anyway, Covered 20.68 Miles

You could probably tell by the tone of yesterday's article that I had wanted to go running and was disappointed at the outside haze. But by early afternoon, it turned out that the haze had dissipated and, although the temperature had risen to 70, I decided to go out on a run. I initially decided to run just for continuity's sake, not trying to cover any appreciable distance. But as I ran, I decided at each step to cover each section of my personally-designed marathon course. I was feeling pretty good for most of the run, and after 13 miles was sore but still had plenty of energy and muscle coordination. The sky was overcast for almost the entire run, and this contributed to a premature nightfall as I found my way back into my home subdivision. I was pretty tired by then, but already had the repeated experience of "gutting it out" during previous runs and thought that I had a chance to complete a full-length marathon (26.2 miles) on this run. I also realized that, to do this, I would be finishing under very dark, night conditions. I was still on target with this goal until around the 19-mile mark, when I "ran" into a figurative wall: my energy level plummeted and I suddenly felt like a feeble old man, with my feet hitting the pavement hard instead of springing with elasticity and balance. At that point I realized that going another 7 miles just wouldn't happen today, and I valiantly struggled to finish my course, albeit curtailed a bit at the end. My final distance was 20.68 miles, a personal record length, with a time of 3:23:56.

Ten minutes after I hobbled back into my house around 5:40, the rain began to fall and didn't let up until late at night. So I was spared a thorough soaking, which would have happened had I run any further. Still, my recovery from this run was pretty rough. I had made the mistake of quickly downing a couple of 20-oz. bottles of G2 (Gatorade "lite") after the run, consequently inducing severe abdominal cramping and pain for about a half-hour. My legs were also very sore and ached badly for a while. It wasn't until after midnight when I finally began to feel a sense of relaxation. Yes, the recovery was rather brutal; the run itself was a piece of cake in comparison. But here I am the next morning, sitting here and feeling good in my good old dependable Magnolia Parke Starbucks, thinking about when I'll once again set out to conquer a personal distance record!

I look back on yesterday's run and feel that I had made some substantial progress with my endurance training. It is within that painful struggle at the end, which is actually more mental than physical, that I grow and approach eventual marathon-level capability. It had been a while since I had pushed myself this far, but it was how I had successfully prepared myself to run the half-marathon at the beginning of this year. I'm taking today off from running, for recovery's sake. I wonder how I will run on Monday!