mission acomplished

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Well, it turns out the weatherman was wrong again, this time in the right direction. There were not, as predicted, torrents of freezing rain. So I was able to do the 20 miler out in the beauty of the world rather than the dreeriness of an indoor track.

How was it?

Mostly good. But I reallly bonked on the last two and a half miles. They were almost pure torture. Before that I started bonking pretty bad on the uphills from about mile 15 on. Every time I hit an incline during that stretch I felt like I was going to die.

And now I am sore as can be. Calves. Quads. Lower back. Feet. All aching.

All in all it was a good learning experience. And I feel more than a little studly, having gone 20 miles on one of the worst weather days of the year.

What did I learn?

For one, stick with the walk/run plan, at least for this stage of my running life. I decided at about mile 5 to abandon the 3 minute run/1 minute walk schedule. From mile five to mile fifteen I ran quite a bit farther between walk breaks, in some cases I went more than a mile before taking a break. I also let the pace pick up pretty good a on a couple of stretches.

I think all of this contributed to me bonking so hard at the end.

I took with me three packs of PowerBar gel. I gulped down the first one at mile 10 as planned. The next two I had at 15 and 18. In both instances I felt pretty much completely wiped out, and the calories boost gave me a little bit of energy to press on. I'm definitely going to need to do that again one the marathon.

So, having learned my lessons, I plan to be a lot smarter when I do my 23 miler on December 30. I'm definitely going to stick to the walk/run plan. And I'll be sure to have plenty of calories handy.

Now, for the rest of the day, I'm going to put my feet up andhope that this pain subsides.