This week we had to run our 18 miles in Fort Worth, on a treadmill. We drove in to our friend's house late Friday night after we got off work and then got up bright and early to run so that we'd be waiting at the door when the Bally's opened to claim a treadmill. We considered running outside but it was already hot that morning and 18 miles is a long time for us to be running alone out on roads we don't know. Then, we thought we'd run on the indoor track at the Bally's by their house, but upon discovering that the track was so tiny it took 22 laps to make one mile, we were given no option but the treadmill.
I was really nervous about doing it on a treadmill though, because more often than not, when I run on a treadmill (and sometimes when I'm just out running), my right ankle/shin muscle will cramp up to the point where I can't bend it to run and have to stop to stretch it out. Sometimes I stop once, stretch it and it's good after than. Sometimes it never lets up for the whole run, which is how it had been on all three of my mid-week runs last week. And so I was praying and praying, especially as I went to sleep on Friday night, for my ankle to not cramp up, because it would make the 18 miles SO long. And as I ran the first three or four miles and was realizing my ankle was perfect, I couldn't stop thanking God the whole rest of my run.
We both ran the whole 18 miles--Landon in about 3 hours and me in about 3 and a half and man, did it feel long to me. When you're running on a track (even going around it 200 times or so) there are other people there for you to pass and be passed by and pace with sometimes, and there are different things to look at as you go around, but on the treadmill, it was one view for 3.5 hours and the time seemed to creep by. I have never been that bored on a run in my life--I was actually getting sleepy. Which is weird, because it was hard and I was really physically tired at the same time. And it didn't help that the new book on tape I had stated earlier that week was not holding my attention all and that no matter where I looked there was a clock, which made the minutes seeemed to crawl by. About an hour and a half in to it, as I considered the 2 hours I had left, I couldn't stop myself from thinking "This really is not fun. At all. Why am I doing this?" I did anything I could to keep my mind off of of how much longer I had to run and my eyes off of the clock--I listened to people's conversations (which were few and far between), I counted people's reps as they lifted weights (and learned people are very sporadic in the number of reps they do), counted the laps people walked on the track. I was desperate.
Landon made a great discovery this run though--when his Ipod died, he plugged his phone in and was able to watch a movie for the last 2 hours of his run, which he said made the run fly by. I think I'm going to have to try that the next time we run on a treadmill for one of our midweek runs.
I started off at my pace this week and then decided to take it a little slower and slowly slowed down some until the end when I managed to pick it back up. My biggest struggle right now is no longer running the whole thing, but maintaining my pace for the whole run--not letting myself slow down when it gets hard or painful or just not fun anymore. There has never been a time when I'm literally going as fast as I can and not able to keep my pace--when I lose my pace it's because I let myself slow down so that it's easier. So far, I've been able to run 12 miles at race pace, but on the 16 and 18 milers, I've slowed down some. My pace this week was about an 11:30, about 40 seconds off of my race pace. I know I could have gone faster though, so this week, for our 14 miler, I'm going to make myself.
Then, for the 20 miler, I'm not sure. Is it smart to run a 20 mile run at race pace 3weeks before the actual race, or will that fatigue me for the race? There are the topics of discussions in Landon and I's life right now...
I'm proud--and somewhat amazed--that we were able to run 18 miles period this week. All I can say is that training really does work because I would have NEVER thought I would be able to run that far without walking if you would have asked me a year ago.
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