AUGUST RECAP & TWO TWENTIES

At the top of Mount Tabor during my 2nd 20 mile run of the training cycle. No watch? No problem!

Yikes, has it really been more than a month since I lasted updated? My bad!

Training has been going really well! August wasn't the ideal month of training for me, but that was planned and anticipated. I was out of town for three of the five Saturdays, which complicated my long runs. So after doing that first twenty miler I wrote about in the previous post, my "long" runs went like this:  12, 6, 18, 16. Not the best!

However, I did do 141 miles in August, which was the most out of any month so far. So it all wasn't for nothing. I was very good about hitting all my runs. I even did 42 miles on my 8 day vacation, including that 18 miler. So honestly, I did pretty well given the scheduling challenges August presented! I even got my speedwork in every week as scheduled.

My route two days ago for 20.

The real test was when I settled back into the normal groove in September, would my "distance" legs still be there? Well, I did twenty milers the last two weekends and I have to say that question is answered with a resounding "yes!" Both of those twenty milers felt GREAT. They were no sweat! Frankly I couldn't quite believe how well they went.

The first one, on September 7th, I was a little iffy about. I hadn't run twenty in over a month, so it was going to tell me a lot about if August's schedule was going to affect me in any way. In what might have been a blessing in disguise, I forgot my watch that morning! Ahhh! Damn you 6:45am brain. However, this was actually quite liberating! Ignorance is bliss! I could just tell myself what I wanted to hear ("oh, this is mile 11, only 9 left" ... when in reality it was mile 8). Honestly the run flew by without a hitch and each time I got a distance update I was surprised we were that far. I finished this run no problem feeling spunky.

And then this last weekend, two days ago, I made myself do another twenty. With the marathon three weeks out (yikes!) this would be my third and final one. I had a compressed time frame due to the OSU football game, so I got to Sunstone at 6:50am and ran seven miles before the normal 8am start. I then ran ten miles with the group. That flew by! Before I knew it I was 17 miles in. I felt great too! My final three miles were something like 9:45, 9:30, 9:15. I've never finished a twenty mile run feeling that spunky. I honestly feel I could have done 23 before having any real issues.

Overall, I feel very confident about my marathon shape. The last four weeks I have ran 36, 36, 39, and 40 miles. I realize that is not a lot to "serious" marathon runners, but for me, that is a significant amount. For my goal, namely to give myself a chance to finish without walking, that is where I need to be. And my legs feel good. My knees feel awesome. I never felt this good before psoriatic arthritis. As I've said before, I definitely think I had it at a low level for years before it flared badly.

So that's the update! I'll try to update again at some point this month before the marathon is right around the corner. Overall, I am feeling good and hitting my runs as scheduled.