20 mile run in the 'burbs

on saturday morning, at 5:45am, i dragged myself out of my warm bed to get ready for the big 20-mile run, the longest run that i will have completed before the marathon! by 6:00am, i was in the car and being driven out to reston, virginina, which is out by dulles airport. for those of you who don't know dc, it's like a 30 minute drive out of dc and into the suburbs. by 7:00am, we were standing outside, doing a warm-up lap (can i just say that i think this is crazy to do a warm-up lap when you are about to run 20 miles, i mean why can't mile 1 be the warm-up lap?), stretching and listening to announcments. at 7:15am, i bravely took off my jacket and immediately began to freeze. and by 7:20am, we were off on the trail!

3 hours and 24 minutes later, i had finished my longest run ever, 20 miles! and let me tell you, it felt great to finish it! although i'm still a little worried about those 6.2 extra miles that i have to run on race day. i mean, that's still one more hour of running!

my actual running of that day was pretty good. i felt energized and my body felt good. the only problem was that it was really really cold and it rained a little bit, which made it even colder. i kept pumping my hands, because they were just so cold! one would assume that since you are running for 3 hours, you would generate heat to keep your entire body warm. anyway, i assumed wrong and should have worn a long sleeved shirt to run in. or, at least brought a pair of mittens to keep my hands warm!

after the run, everyone was starving! i mean, normally, i eat a couple pretzels after the run (our coaches usually bring us food) and don't eat until i get home. but on saturday, i was starving and m&ms were the best things ever! i even ventured to have a piece of pizza, but by the time i hit the boxes, none was left!

now we begin tapering, which means that for the next 3 weeks, our long weekend runs will start to decrease in mileage and our weekday runs will start to decrease as well. this weekend on sunday, i'll be running in the army 10-miler race, so that should be fun!

i can't believe it. i've been training since may and now there's only 27 days left!