Victory!!!

Today was my longest mileage attempt to date and I was scared. However, I tried not to think about it. Because every time I think about whatever long distance I'm doing I hit some sort of invisible wall during my run. I psych myself out so bad that I flake out 5-6 miles into my 16-20 mile run. I never have problems doing 5-6 miles but for some reason during those long runs I feel out of breath and completely fatigued. It's been pretty sucky.

Then today I changed my thinking. I figured this was my last shot to fix whatever crap was in my head before the marathon AND it worked!!! First off, I had to tell myself that I wasn't going to fail. I could really do this thing and have faced some pretty ridiculously hard events that I have overcome (those ridiculous 16-18 mph winds during the half ironman a couple of months ago). The trick was I need to go nice and easy and just slow down - thanks guys :) However in all honesty, I could give two hoots about time. I know - you think: "Really? You care about time." Yes and no. I care about time because to me, I like to test my limits without breaking down. I want to see how much faster I can go, but sometimes I just want to clear my head and go for a nice long jog. So, that's what I did today and I was successful. I think another factor to my success today was repeating my mantra: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Sounds crazy, but it works - trust me.

So once I clocked my 20 miles (3:47), I lifted my hands in sheer victory. Yup, in public AND I totally didn't care. The people outside in my neighborhood had no idea why I was cheering, but I did and it was fantastic. The crazy thing about this run was that some of my past runs were faster (not by much) but I felt like complete CRAP! Complete crap. To the point where on my long run last week I threw a tantrum and stopped my Garmin in protest. You might think I'm a baby, but I like to explain that tantrum as being punched in the face by that invisible wall. However, either way I have dreaded all my long runs and felt completely defeated after every single one of them recently. The best part after my run is when I tell my husband how I want to quit running. He literally smiles and rolls his eyes and says "ok", because he knows two days later my butt will be out on the road again. I love him for dealing with my crap :)

So let's summarize what I did differently:

• I took something called SportsLegs this morning. It's a pill that you take to prevent lactic acid from building up in your legs. I've actually had it for a while and have never taken it. I'm not sure if it worked or not, but I felt great the first couple of miles and will DEFINITELY take it the day of the Marathon. 
• I told myself in the beginning of my run I wasn't going to fail. 
• I started my first 5-6 miles at a 12:30-13:00 min/mile pace.
• I sporadically drank water from my CamelPak as opposed to limiting my water intake. The mix inside my CamelPak today was a Nuun tablet and water. 
• I mostly listened to upbeat music. My absolute favorite songs today we're: Destiny's Child Survivor and Eminem's Not Afraid.
• I would continually repeat my mantra: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."Especially when I wanted to give up.
• I'd set mini goals for myself. My first goal was to 5 miles. My next goal was 5 miles, and then another 5 miles. For my last 5 miles, my goal was every .5 miles.

As cheesy as this sounds, I'm glad things went the way they did. Suffering through those training runs made me truly appreciate this one. I felt like I accomplished something great and didn't feel like I was going to die on the side of the road. Pretty awesome.