With Goofy only a month away, I figured it was time to get a long run in – a real LONG run. My goal at this point, given some time lost to being sick and having other life events get in the way, was a 20 miler. I also went into this on the idea that the goal was to condition my body to handle the mileage. I learned at the end it’s more mental than anything else. 13.1 is that magic half distance that seemed so hard when I first started training, but now is just like “ok another half marathon”.
The original Goofy training plan had me doing at least 2 20-milers before the big races. Doing a half and a full marathon on back-to-back days, a total of 39.3 miles, will take a physical toll, but the mental aspect should not be overlooked. An unexpected “severe upper respiratory infection” knocked me out for the better part of nearly two weeks. The result is that my best shot for a long run was today, the day after Christmas.
I’m happy to say I accomplished most of it – 18.5 miles. I did it on the Northampton Canal Park, a trail that’s roughly 1 mile long. If you run it back and forth, each “lap” equates to about 2.5 miles (there’s a runoff section at the end that I added). My goal was to start and keep going as long as I could. I managed 7 laps, plus a little extra, without music, just listening to the sounds of nature. My pace was a lot slower than usual, and I’ll equate that to running the day after Christmas, the temperature being around 32 when I started at 7:45am, and two weeks of relatively no running. The best part of the morning, was over the 4 hours I was moving, the temperature rose into the 40’s making for a nice ending to the training run.
I also tried to adjust and stay ahead of my fueling. A combination of a gels, a protein bar, swedish fish, and tortilla chips along with a non-diet Coke kept me going throughout. I’m actually surprised that I never really felt hungry until the end. The real mental challenge came around Mile 14, when it was essentially uncharted territory. Back on Wine and Dine weekend, I technically was on my feet for close to 25+ miles in one day, but it was broken up throughout the day. Today, I knocked out the 18 and then some.
Now as I’m sitting here typing, and it’s almost 9pm, my left knee is a little sore, my right hamstring and calf muscles are tight, and my feet ache a bit. Overall, I’ll call this a success. It’s a mental boost to make my believe I can do this thing called Goofy in two more weeks. The other nice thing about the real race – I’ll have some running friends alongside to keep things interesting – and I’ll be at Walt Disney World. Can’t get any better than that… well, maybe if we have good weather!
