One Last Long Run

...before the taper. After the bad day I had on Sunday, I didn't think that things could get worse. But after a day of extreme muscle tension and sleeping on it, I found that it could. Much worse. My body hurt from top to bottom. The only type of pain I can compare this to is when I got bone marrow stimulator shots during chemo. It puts your body into over-drive and everything aches. From muscles to bones. It felt like I had been hit by a truck. A slow, easy shake-out run on Monday afternoon made it feel much better. After all, it really was just tight muscles, nothing to really do but loosen them, right?

Wednesday morning, Matt and I decided on one more long run before the taper to race day. Our last 18 miler was on Sept. 30, so if we didn't do another it would have been a 6-week taper. Not quite the best idea. :)

We set some goals/guidelines for this run :

1. Since we were basically squeezing three long runs into a 7 day period (a 12 coming up on Sat or Sun), we didn't want to push it and go fast.

2. Must go real easy. Like "I can hold this pace for 30 miles straight" kind of easy.

3. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.

4. We also figured out how much time it takes us to get ready and how our body responds to breakfast at a certain time. (The half really threw us off!!!)

5. Whatever pace comes out from this will be my "Easy" goal for race day.

We set out at a 9:00/mi, basically the same pace I start with for all of my longer runs. I kept at least that pace for the entire time while we were running. It felt great. We walked for GU and the one tough hill on the course and it shows where those are on my splits. Basically, I just wanted to have one super confident finish to my run before we hit the taper. I had one really great 20 miler before, so it didn't matter what this pace was. No point in running myself into the ground. When we hit the 15 mile spot, we had the option to make our 18 miler into a 20 with an out-and-back, but we decided that we didn't need it.

What we ended up with was this :

18 miles, 2:44, 9:09/mi and tons of confidence.

By the last long run before Green Bay in May, I struggled to average 9:20/mi. Easy at a 9:09/mi sounds great! :) Time to enjoy the taper and mentally prepare for race day!

PS- Thanks for the advice on visiting my family for three weeks next year. I think I'm going to do it. Run Green Bay and visit all those beautiful places I lived so near to but have never seen!!