Week 10 Update.

Week 10's been hard. I started off Monday with a 4.8 mile run (almost 5 dammit) - I took this one real easy - just the normal route around work with both loops. I took Tuesday off and then went pretty hard Wednesday - Larry and I did the "Sneakers Mile" and the "Bitch" - in addition to both loops at what passes for a brisk - probably 7:50ish pace over 6 miles (faster at times). Since I was supposed to run 9 on Wednesday - I went out with Dave T. for an easy 3.8 miler just down around Avery Point and back up on Thursday. In retrospect - I should've just done the 9 and taken Thursday off.

Which bring me to today's run from hell. Turns out - 20 miles in 3 hours and 8 minutes of running is really, really hard. I did this one after dropping the kids off at school/daycare - and left my house at ~8:50. The first hour and 20 minutes felt great. I took a gel at about then and around the 1:40 mark was thinking "when's that gel going to kick in?". By the time I hit the 2 hour mark I wanted to walk - a waited to the 2:10 mark and did another gel and short ~20 second walk before getting the legs going again. The last hour felt really hard. It was like last week - but 18 minutes longer! I guess that's why we train for marathons - it puts the "hard" in "hard work".

The nice thing about the morning run/afternoon work (half-day) is that I can sit on my ass at my desk and not have to get up every 3 minutes to do some kid-related task. Hopefully my body will feel better - just about everything hurts right now: feet, calvs, knees, quads, lower-back, upper-back - wicked chafing in areas that I really do not want wicked chafing. Only 2 more runs like that, then I can begin my long, glorious taper. (I'm assuming marathon tapers are just about the best thing in the world - so don't tell me otherwise.)