FINAL TWENTY BEFORE VANCOUVER

It was an awesome day for running, mid 60s and a beautiful trail.

Saturday I did my final twenty mile run before the Vancouver Marathon on May 4th. Like training for Portland, I managed to get three twenty mile runs in. Why three? Well, I based my training plans off the Hal Higdon plans and his intermediate and advanced plans all have three twenty milers. It seems like a good balance between getting prepared as possible for the marathon without tearing your body down in the process.

This time around I also timed my twenty milers just about like his plan. They were 8, 6, and 3 weeks from race day. Back in 2013 for Portland they were 11, 7, and 4 weeks from the day of the race. I feel like clumping them closer to race day will lead to a stronger race. We'll see. I also did Ragnar last weekend and ran 26 miles in 26 hours, so that has to count for something. Just hope I didn't wear myself down!

We'll call this "The Claw" route.

Twenty milers still suck. They suck but are manageable. This is only the second time I have done it alone, the other time being my first ever twenty miler. That first one was an "adventure" and I did fine without headphones but this time around I needed something to distract myself a little. I ended up loading three episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher onto my phone and listened to those while running. Ended up being good distraction material and I cracked up out loud to myself numerous times.

As for the run itself, it went well. Just ran from my house to the Fanno Creek Trail and all the way up to its northern terminus. Then back south along the trail all the way to the Tigard Library, about a mile from the southern end of the trail. Then back up the trail to Hall and to my house. Ended up hitting twenty right where I wanted to as I was able to get a half mile cool down walk to my house. Felt pretty good on the run, but I still think I was a little worn from Ragnar. Miles 16-20 weren't the most comfortable, but all told it wasn't too bad for twenty miles. Mostly my feet just hurt.

Three hours and fifteen minutes is just a really long freaking time to be on your feet. Anyways, the goal now is to taper for the race. By far the best part of marathon training! Hal Higdon does 12 and 8 the next two weekends in most his plans. I think I'll do 14 and 10 just since I don't do quite the midweek miles his plans have. We'll see. I can tell I'm a little worn from my recent high mileage weekends, so rest is most important at this point.