Today was 18, and I have to admit I was EXTREMELY nervous! It's been almost three weeks since the kidney stone ordeal, and my longest run has been 16 miles (the day I went to the ER).
14 miles was a breeze. Autumn and I actually started our run/walk plan (run a mile, walk 30 seconds, run a mile, walk 30 seconds, etc.) for this distance, and it worked really well. With this being my longest distance ever, you can imagine the uneasiness. My legs did start feeling a little like lead come mile 12, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I feared. 16 miles was even better. I didn't feel achy at all during the run...though we all know what happened after. :/
But 18...I wasn't sure how this was going to go. Autumn had just informed me that she wouldn't be doing the marathon, as she has a stress fracture in her foot. As much as it bums me that I won't be running with her (my awesome motivator), I know it's eating her alive not to be able to run with me. This was going to be her first "just for fun" marathon, and she won't be able to do it. :(
However, Autumn came up with an awesome plan to keep me on track. I would run the first 9-10 by myself, then she would catch up and ride her bike next to me the rest of the way. It sounds so silly...and I'm quite sure it looked exactly like that. But it worked! She set her gears to the lowest setting and encouraged me the entire 8 miles back to our car! (We have come to LOVE the Shelby Farms Greenline for training, so I left her to get some studying done at Republic Coffee, ran 9 miles one way, turned around, got a mile back, then we finished together.)
More training posts to come!
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