THOMAS' TWENTY MILE TROT TOMMORROW

Good picture posted by the race organizers of Brandon's finish last Sunday (and me trailing behind).

Last weekend I ran 18 miles on Saturday. It went GREAT. Seriously, it was one of those runs that you wish they could all be like! I mapped out a route from my house all the way to Tualatin Community Park and back. It's pretty cool to be able to run through four cities on your run, but I was able to do it (Beaverton, Tigard, Tualatin, Durham). Just really funny to find myself in downtown Tualatin after starting at my house... you really can go far on your feet!

Overall the run took just slightly under three hours (without stoplight/water breaks). After starting in the 9:40s around mile 12 or so I found my times over 10:00 for consecutive splits, which is just too slow. If I am trying to run a marathon at 3:30 or 3:45 my long runs are going to have to be faster than that. Anyways, I kind of got frustrated at my pace and took it up a notch. My fastest mile was mile 16 at 9:09. Miles 15 & 17 were 9:23. So I picked up the pace and felt great. Really the whole run felt good.



Different sides of the sidewalk... totally a loop!

I only started to feel tired around mile 17 once I realized I had taken a wrong turn and was running away from my house. As soon as that happened I suddenly felt a lot more tired and achey. Kind of goes to show you there is certainly a mental part to this whole running thing. I ended up having to walk two miles home, but I think it was actually good for me. It was a nice warm down walk and likely helped in the recovery process because the next day at the 5K with Brandon I felt pretty dang good for running 18 the day before.

This weekend's "course" is an extension of the 18 I did last week, stretching it to 20 by going further south in Tualatin (to my parents' house actually). I was able to set aside my neurotic need for a "clean loop" (a pure loop where I never cross my own path) to take a stroll through Little Woodrose Nature Park, a park I used to run through back in the day before I was really a runner. I suppose I can suck it up and run that 100 foot trail into the park twice. Funny, I don't mind out and backs or crossing my path on most runs, but if I get the idea of a loop in my head, I really like to make it happen, even to the point of running on the other side of the road to avoid ground I have already been on. Sigh.

A link to the route I plan to run can be found here. This is my first ever twenty miler. This is the legendary mileage, the long run everyone dreads, the common "wall point," the reason people tremble when they first look at a marathon training plan. So this run will be one for the record books! Overall I am not too worried about it, it is just two miles more than my run last week and that went great. My legs do feel tired and not as fresh though, so I expect this run might be a little bit more of a struggle. We'll see.