RECAP OF MY SECOND SIXTEEN MILER

First off, I gotta say, sixteen miles is a long ways! Those 20 mile runs are gonna suck! That aside, this sixteen mile run went surprisingly well. I didn't really start wanting to be done until about mile 12, so I only had to go four miles at that point. It's funny how you can break down the distances once you are up there to convince yourself to keep going.

Carrying the water bottle worked out pretty well and it wasn't super annoying. I ended up drinking the entire thing 3 times, so 60oz of water during my run. Seemed to work out well, I wasn't thirsty and I was able to do all my bottle filling at the one water fountain in the park. I took a really easy pace and made myself stick to that. Around 14 miles or so my muscles and joints really started to ache and I did take a short 1 minute break at mile 15 to stretch before I climbed up the gradual hill on Davies.

Overall though I think this went a lot better than my sixteen mile run two weeks before. It didn't seem as hard and I think I recovered a little bit faster. So that is good news! Turns out this was a really good sixteen mile route from my house, so I'll probably use it for sixteen milers in the future. Honestly this run was really encouraging.

Next weekend I have a half marathon. Despite wanting to run it all out, I think I'll take it easy and more or less run it "for fun."  I am not going to PR on the course next weekend, it is very hilly, so that is out the window. Plus, I have another half in a couple weeks that is super flat and a very good PR course. So if I want to try and PR again, that is the race. I think I am going to run this one semi-hard (ha) but not try to PR. Shoot for a 1:45 or so.

Anyways, more on that next week. Also, a HUGE congrats to Libbie, who ran her first marathon today and finished in 5:23, keeping a steady pace the whole way. Awesome! :)