20 miles!

Well, it's official, I have run 20 miles at once. I still can't wrap my head around that distance. It seems so long and yet I'm still so far from the marathon distance.

The morning started at 4am. We went out for a 6 mile loop. This 6 was uneventful. We took it slow, but not as slow as in the past. Still not any problems.

Sabrina and I met up with Rick at 5am and left for a 14 mile loop. This distance is the furthest we've ever run at once from the gym, so we had a lot ahead of us. We made it to our first water stop (around mile 5 - 11 overall). It was good to stop and refuel a bit. Then it was off to the hills of our route. This proved to be challenging. We had to push each other through this part, we kept saying - Columbus won't be like this, if we can do these, then Columbus will be easy!

Whatever it took...

We made it through that part and miles 6-8 (12-14 overall) I ended up telling the story of what brought me to Louisville to begin with (Bellarmine) and the reason I still live in Kentucky (Sarah). That worked really well because I don't even remember those miles!

Another water stop and it was on to the final stretch. The run started to get quite a bit more difficult here. My legs and feet were sore. I still felt strong, but I knew that there was a lot more to go and I just had to keep moving forward. We had to detour a bit to make sure we hit 20. This was nice because it was something different. At the final water stop (mile 18 overall) I was wondering what was going to get me to the end. I stretched my legs and felt GREAT! We had planned on walking one of the final hills - not far after the water stop - but our legs felt so good, we powered on. It was also around here that my legs went numb. Not in a bad way, but I'm pretty sure they were in so much pain and so exhausted, that this was some sort of defense mechanism. Whatever it was, I didn't care, I was still moving.

Finally, I could see the end of our run in the distance. I knew we didn't have that much further to go. At this point, I started to understand why mile 20 is considered "the wall." There really was a part of me that thought, no way, I just physically cannot go any further. I now understand what people are talking about. But, I did go on. I finished that 20 miler and I won't look back.

Today, I'm a bit sore, but not too much. I look forward to my run tomorrow morning to "flush out" the long run. This week is relatively easy with a 10 mile long run this Saturday. But in 2 weeks, we're going to conquer "the wall" in our last long run of 22 miles. Yes, this leaves us 4.2 left for the actual marathon, but mentally that's nothing. And running, as "they" say, is 90% mental.

Look out Columbus!