32 Miles in 1 Day!

Okay, so that title is a little deceptive. The miles weren't consecutive, but over a 24 hour span. I ran 12 miles yesterday at 2:00 PM and followed that this morning with a 20 mile run.

The plan was to run a 6 mile loop around my home, fuel up, and then go out for a 14 mile loop. Boy, did that plan completely get thrown out the window. All was good when I first set out. The skies were cloudy and I was wondering if the rain was going to come. The forecast had predicted a 10% chance of rain, so I figured I would probably be okay. After the 1st mile, it started to drizzle. It was intermittent and didn't bother me much. At this point, I was debating whether or not to increase the first loop to 8 miles so the second loop would be shorter. I was feeling pretty good so I decided to run a little further and didn't think fueling later on would make much of a difference.

When mile 4 came around, the rain started to come. My first thought was that it would come and go like the drizzle previously, but it never stopped. My gear kept me pretty dry for the first few miles, but as the rain continued, I ended up getting drenched. At this point, I was debating whether to keep running outside or continue the run outside. I still had 2 more hours to go, and didn't want to run the risk of getting sick for being in the rain for too long so I decided to head home to change gear and head to the gym for the remaining miles.

First part of the run:
9.37 miles/1:25:36/9:08 pace (a little quicker, probably because I was trying to outrun the rain!)

When I got home, I quickly changed, took a gel, and got to the gym 5 minutes later. The gym was absolutely packed today. They have close to 20 treadmills and there was only 1 available, the last one by the wall. I didn't care because I was dry and inside! I had 10.7 more miles to go and knew this was going to be the hardest 10 miles I ever ran, outside of running the last 10 miles of the Rock and Roll marathon last year.

Mentally, I broke down the run into 3 sections. The first part was to get to 3.0 miles which was relatively simple. The next goal was to get to 5.7 miles where I would fuel up again with another gel. That proved to be pretty difficult. My legs were shot from the run yesterday and I had to stop to stretch my hamstrings a few times. With 5 miles to go, I broke it down into 5-1 mile segments. After each mile, I walked for 30 seconds and drank some water. The last 3 miles were especially difficult, but I tried to think about what it would be like if those were my last 3 miles at the RNR marathon. This helped a little with the pain. When I got to the last mile, I mustered enough energy to increase the pace to MP, 8:57/mile, and finish the run. After the run, I was exhausted but glad to be finished.

Second part of the run:
10.7 miles/1:43:00/9:38 pace

Total run:
20.07 miles/3:08:36/9:24 pace

Overall, I was pretty pleased with the run. I knew that my legs were going to be tired from yesterday's run and experienced that soreness, but was glad to know that I was able to run the mileage at a quicker pace than expected. I don't think that a sub-4 marathon is in the bag yet, but I know that I'm close. I have one more 20 miler planned, and I think that I'm going to try and run that a little quicker and see how I feel.

Up next, another 50 mile week. In the meantime, lots of rest, an easy 5 miler tomorrow, and lots of time on the couch watching the Masters!