Week 7 Day 5 My Longest Long Run in my Plan

I did it, today I made it through a 20 mile long run and I did it in Vibram Fivefinger Bikilas. 8 months ago as I was slogging my fat gut over the Savannah River on the Bridge run I never would have thought in a million years that I would be able to run 20 miles at one time but here I am. According to my training plan, as modified by Lydia at Fleet Feet, 20 miles is the longest training run I will do prior to the Rock and Roll Marathon in November. Thats not to say that it was great, perfect, or even anywhere near the best run, there were a few issues along the way but I still made it to the end with a very respectable time I think and only room for improvement.

I woke up pretty early, like 5:00 I think it seems forever ago, and I just laid in bed reading the iPad some getting caught up on overnight social media and reading a few stories. I decided I needed to get moving and get some food in me to help fuel the run so I got up after about 20 minutes and started getting my gear. I had already laid out shorts, shoes, running belt, phone on charge, ear buds, ziploc baggie for phone, Gu, filled water bottle partially and stuck in the freezer waiting to be topped off. I ate a Cliff bar and drank some water while I filled my run bottle the rest of the way with Powerade, stuck a few Gus in my pockets and the pocket on my insulated bottle handle, stuck the rest of everything outside to recharge at the halfway point. I think I made my first mistake here by only eating the Cliff Bar, I should have at minimum done a Gu shot before leaving too to get ahead of the fuel burn, which is what I did 2 weeks ago on my 18 miler and it seemed to go well. It was still pitch black dark, especially on my part of the street because the nearest street light at the corner 2 houses away is intermittent and turns on and off all night, but I headed off into the cool thick darkness. Yeah, it actually felt somewhat cool again at 5:30AM which was another reason I didn’t want to tarry too long in the bed because I knew the sun would be up beating on me before the run was done and it was going to be be mid nineties again.

I took it easy in the beginning, even had the music down low so I could pay attention in the dark and keep most of my senses open. When I finally got to some consistent street lights I bumped up the volume and hit my pace. When I got to my hiding spot at one mile I paused only for a second to drop off the bottle and keep going. Here is a quick basic map of my Y pattern I run. On my longest runs I sometimes will add an extra mile on the bottom right and top right ends because there is an additional half mile further out turning point I can go to, I just need to move my bottle some because that means 3 miles between water breaks, so I try to stick to the one mile legs you see here. So I can comfortably do 8 miles with stops in the middle at my bottle, and carry 2 Gus in my pockets that I’ll pop right before getting back to the bottle so I’ll have something to help wash it down with but not have to try and open it while holding a bottle, I think I’m getting the hang of this. I also think the coolness had me fooled, mistake 2 was not getting enough fuel in me during the run I think and I was behind by not having enough before I left too. The air just made me feel better since I’d been running in higher heat and humidity all summer. I also had a return of my left calf cramp right before the turnaround at mile 2, yeah, not even 10% of the way into the run. Good thing it wasn’t as bad as last Tuesday which caused me to turn around, I was able to run through it this time although it never stopped and still is bothering me some. I seemed to have a few lower extremities issues today overall, nothing major, just some little pains that didn’t happen yesterday, maybe I paid today for such a good run yesterday, maybe I went too hard.

There weren’t as many people out as yesterday, I guess Sunday is everyone else’s day of rest, especially since they had already run on Saturday, heaven forbid to get in 2 runs on a weekend. I did see maybe 4 people I think including James, and older guy I met on my first 10 mile run that lives in Buckhead North, about 2 miles from me on that upper part of the Y. I ended up back at the house at the end of mile 8 as planned, refilled the water bottle grabbed some more Gus and got back out on the road. Somewhere around mile 14 or so I started getting a little fatigued. I popped 2 Gus back to back when I realized I was already a good ways into the run and hadn’t eaten as much as I had on my 18 mile run, I was behind a good bit by now. I also added an extra leg to this segment getting 10 miles in all together so when I got back home I was at mile 18 with only a short one mile out and turn around and come back to run home.

Overall I count this run as a success, I made it through with a 10:13min/mi average, with relatively few issues, TWENTY MILES! I think I was a little under fueled and I think I lost a little too much weight, 4lbs total, so I was possibly getting a little dehydrated as well. But I think that I will recover from this run nicely and my body will rebuild even stronger. Next Sunday is “only” 14 miles so I get a chance at redemption for my first 14 miler, the following Sunday is a cutback week so only 7 miles, then I get another shot at 20 so I hope to use the mistakes to make that run even better. It should also be cooler then too I hope and that will also be my last really long run before the Disney Wine and Dine half marathon so I should be able to get through 13.1 at night easily by then.

I also titled this as the longest run in my plan. Technically the plan I got had me going further, there were 2 runs that went over 20. However, when I talked to Lydia she said that I shouldn’t do anything over 20, that 20 was plenty, and especially since I was a newbie runner, there was just more chance for harm than good to go that farther. As I read more about it the educated part of me thinks “hogwash, people run farther than that all the time, look at all the ultra marathon runners that do 50ks or 50 and 100 miles, they go well past 26.2 in training frequently.” So if I trained on past, say to 30 miles, I’d be ready for a marathon. But then I try to remember that I really am a true newbie at running, especially distance running. Many coaches I’ve read about don’t even advise STARTING a marathon program without a solid year base mile in your legs, and I started my marathon plan with less than 6 months and I took off a few weeks in there with a silly injury, which is what prompted me to switch on over to minimalist shoes and get into the Vibrams. So maybe if things work out and next year I want to run another marathon I may alter this program to go farther on the longest runs but I’m now confident in my ability to go 20 miles, so another 10k on top of that should be a piece of cake right?