The Winner Is Me

As Kate so charmingly noted in her last post, today was the 20-mile run.

The day started off overcast and a little foggy, but it wasn't terribly cold when I left the house around 7:25, and the high for the day was supposed to be 73 - a perfect day.

I threw a bunch of gatorade and gus in my car and headed out to Hines Park. This is about 23 miles from my house. When I got there, it was chaos. I was a little later than I wanted to be, and there were runners milling around all over the place. As soon as I parked and started walking over to the other runners, I saw first one and then later the other of my UM compatriots. This turned out to be the first element that made the day pretty awesome.

We got signed in and started running. The course was along the park road, first out and back 5 miles one way, then 11 the other, then an extra 4 again to make the 20. We started with a slightly faster pace than I would have chosen, but I discovered two things:
1) Having people to talk to really does make the time fly. I knew this, but had forgotten how effective it is. Not only do you not notice how long you've been running, but the distraction makes you relax enough to warm up well and get through the initial part where you think you can't possibly run for more than 15 minutes.
2) I'm actually a lot stronger than I thought. It turns out that the hills here have really been taking it out of me. With a flatter course and the blessed regular hydration stations, I had much more stamina than I've felt in the last few weeks.

The result?
I finished in about 4:16, which includes all water stops and one full mile of walking. This puts my pace at 12:48, which is a lot faster than I've done any of my long runs for the last two months. I walked mile 18, and then picked it up again for miles 19 and 20, and my pace was still under 13 for the last two miles. I'm really tired now and I know tomorrow will be rough and achey, but I don't feel completely devastated.

And now I officially start scaling back my distances to prep for race day. Hooray!!