FINAL TWENTY IN TWENTY FIFTEEN

See if you can spot me and my bed head. Not going to look pretty when I'm about to run. #dontGAF

This last Saturday was the final twenty mile training run of this marathon cycle. Wohoo! Seems like just yesterday I was running my first. It feels great to have that out of the way and be on the "downside" of the training mountain. Sixteen next weekend, followed by eight, then the race. I managed to do four twenty mile runs this cycle, same as last year. Frankly, from a long run perspective, my work this year has been just as good as last.

As mentioned in my previous blog post, last week's brunch run was a real bear. My legs felt pretty sore all week and I was starting to doubt my ability to do the race if the run was affecting me that much. Well, toward the end of the week my legs felt a little better and I was able to trick myself into running five miles Friday night by allowing myself to finish at the grocery store so I could buy pizza. True story. Carried my credit card and then did a half mile cool down walk with my frozen pizza. Whatever works, right?

Saturday morning I was a little concerned because I had done three on Thursday and five on Friday. That isn't much at all, but with the way my legs were still kind of feeling the brunch run I figured Saturday's twenty miler might be a real death march. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised. My legs actually felt pretty good the entire run. The last mile was a big of a slog, but otherwise they felt much better than last week and didn't feel like they were being overworked.

The challenge this run was my energy level. I felt completely zapped of energy from about mile twelve onward. Towards the end it was all I could do to stare at the ground and just shuffle forward. Completely different than last week where my legs were screaming but my energy level was okay. Usually in a marathon you are fighting both so I guess it was good to have practice at the other one this week! I am not sure of the culprit, but I did not fuel at all until the second half of the run because I was having indigestion from my pizza run the night before. #runnerlife