22 miles, check!

Looking good after 22!

Yesterday Ruth Ann, Elizabeth and myself had our last long training run before The Houston Marathon, which is only, 20 days 21 hours and 45 minutes away (as of the writing of this post), but whose counting??  We were hosted by a different running club for this run, which I was very psyched about.  It was in a different city than ours, and I was very ready for a new route.  I can only do the same route so many times before it becomes painfully boring.  Yesterday I feel like I had one of the best runs of my training and I feel like it was because it was a new route and we had the PERFECT weather.  An apology in advance to my friends up north......... it was 44 to start, and when we finished it was a beautiful 50 degrees.  I am praying everyday for weather like that on race day.  It could even be a little colder out at the start and I would be thrilled.

Since we had to drive to the location yesterday I used the run as a trial for race day.  Woke up super early, ate my pre race fuel, and had on my race day outfit.  I opted for running capris, and a tank, with arm warmers.  It may seem crazy to some, to wear a tank in 44 degree weather, but I warm up so quickly when I run that it really works well for me.  No chafing anywhere, so the outfit passed the test.

During training runs, or past races for that matter I typically take nutrition every 30 minutes.  Yesterday I was running with a girl who was very chatty, so I kind of lost track of time. It wasn't till almost 50 minutes in that I realized I hadn't taken and GU yet, which my body was definitely telling me I needed.  I took one and was still feeling great.  I decided to just kind of listen to my body at that point instead of being on a nutrition time schedule.  I feel like this worked really well for me.  I hope by doing this during the race I am not depleting all of my nutrition before I refuel, but I felt so good yesterday that I think I will ok.  Around mile 15 there was an aid station where I did have a banana, and around mile 19 I ate a cookie.  It was weird they had them, because I really felt like I needed some sugar at that point.  Or maybe I just wanted a cookie. 

Overall my pace for this run was 9:40/mile.  I finished 21.76 miles in 3:30:10.  I am extremely happy with this pace.  I am sure you can figure out where this will put me to finish the 26.2.  I don't want to write it, as not to jinx myself!!!  This will take a HUGE amount of time off of my finishing time from last year.  I will be so thrilled if this happens.  And I am sure I will be able to push it more during the race as well, being that it will be a race and not a training run.  I think my pace remained pretty consistent, partly because I did take two Tylenol before we started.  The past few runs I have had my hips really start hurting after about 12-13 miles.  They still hurt a bit yesterday, but not nearly as bad. 

  We start a 3 week taper now minus the half marathon that Jeff and I have planned this weekend.  This is the first half I did last year.  I really want to beat my time from last year, as I am a stronger runner now.  However, I went into my marathon injured last year, and I do not want to do that this year.  So I am really going to have to force myself to just use this race as a training run!