Day 157.

Long run day!  I woke up at 5am, ate a small, homemade energy bar (oatmeal, flaxseed, sesame seeds, reduced fat peanut butter and honey), then I set to doing about 20 minutes of Pilates to warm up.  As I went out for my run, the sun was barely coming up.  I walked for about 1/4 mile then started my run.  This week is what I have been referring to as a "filler" week.  Because I started training for the marathon about 9+ months in advance, and the schedule I'm using is only 30 weeks, I had to improvise and add 9 more weeks to the schedule.  Most of those additional weeks I did early on in the training, by repeating the base building, low mileage weeks.  Anyway, I've reserved a few of the extra weeks for these later months of training, so that I can repeat a few of the longer runs, maybe even adding an additional really long run later on, which will hopefully make me feel more prepared for the marathon.

So I set out today to do an 11 mile run, which is a 1 mile increase from last week's long run.  Last week the route I chose to do my 10 miler took me in a big loop, but when I got back to my starting point, and I hadn't quite hit the 10 mile mark, I had to improvise and run around town until I hit 10 miles.  So this time, I did the same basic route, but instead of turning on the road I did last time (at approximately the half-way point), I kept going to the next road up that would take me over to loop back around heading back toward home.  I wasn't sure going into it how many miles it would add to the distance, but I just set my Garmin to alert me when I'd run 11 miles.  Well, it ended up being further than I estimated.  When my Garmin beeped at 11 miles, it seemed I was still a good distance from home.  I was wiped out at that point, so at the 11 mile mark, I slowed to a walk and got my dried blueberries out of my pack and ate those, and drank some water while I walked.  After walking for about 1/2 mile, I picked up my pace again and ran almost the rest of the way home.  After downloading the info from my Garmin, I figured out that I ran a little over 12 miles, and walked almost 1 mile, and I am feeling it...big time!  I did level 1 of Yoga Meltdown afterwards, which felt good for stretching and cool down purposes, but my legs were shaking.

It feels so good to know I've accomplished something so difficult.  I really had to focus on my internal dialogue today, and even though I can feel the strain and pain on my body on the long runs, the mental struggle is even harder.  It's during those moments when I want to stop running and walk, that I remind myself of all the others who have gone before me on the quest to conquer the marathon.  It can be done!