Week 15

Well, I made it over the hump. It's all downhill from here, at least until race day anyway. It was a long week with lots of running and lots of working. It's good to have it behind me.

I got in the first 5 miler on Tuesday morning before work. I had to work late Tuesday night though, so I waited 'till Wednesday night to run the 10 miler. It was 11:00 when I finished so I was in no shape to run again the next morning. So I ran the second 5 miler Thursday night.

The toughest part of the midweek running was fitting it into my schedule this week. But that's not to say that the running was a walk in the park mind you. I was feeling pretty worn out this week. The pep in my step had kinda peppered out. I'm hoping that during the next 3 weeks of tapering off I'll get some of that spring back in my stride.

Of course Saturday was the big 20 mile run. It was the peak of my training program, the longest distance I'll run until race day and the culmination of a 40 mile week of running. I really wanted to do something to make this run more significant. We certainly could have just done four five mile loops around the neighborhood. That would have been easier, psychologically at the least. You know, you can just tell yourself that you'll be back home in a couple of miles. I wanted to do something more like race day. I wanted to run to somewhere, not just run in circles.

After a little prodding I talked Dane into running from Lake Mayer to the lighthouse on Tybee Island. We knew this would take more preparation and the run itself would be more difficult, but it really put the distance into perspective. Most folks around here get tired or bored just driving to Tybee. There's a big difference in telling someone you ran around the neighborhood 4 times and telling them you ran the distance between two very well known local locations.

Anyway, Dane and I met around 5:30 at the lighthouse on Tybee and left my truck in the parking lot. We reset the tripometer and started driving our route in reverse. We stopped every 5 miles and put out water bottles and Powergel. We finally got back to Lake Mayer and started running at 6:15.

Oh yeah, did I mention it was rainy and cold Saturday morning. All morning. I didn't rain hard, it just drizzled most of the time. It was more annoying at the beginning but after and hour or so, I kinda forgot about it.

My shins were real tight for the first 3 or 4 miles, but that went away. Then my glutes and hamstrings started getting sore at about 8 miles and stayed sore the rest of the way. I was surprised about my quads though. Everything I've been reading talks about the quads giving out near the end of runs this long, but mine felt fine. The backs of my legs were the only thing giving me any real trouble. Well, except that my left knee cap of course. I got particularly painful by the end of the run, more so than before, but it feels OK today.

Running across the bridges proved exciting. The first two in Thunderbolt and Wilmington Island weren't too bad. They both had nice wide shoulders to run it. But the last two didn't. The one coming off of Wilmington was 0.7 miles long with no shoulder. Luckily it was pretty flat and the traffic was fairly light, but the one coming onto Tybee was a different story. It's pretty steep and traffic as kinda heavy at the time. We wound up running up on the tall curb hoping not the get blown off into the river on back down into the roadway in front of a semi. The wind was really blowing as we ran this bridge.

I had wanted to run all the way up to and touch the lighthouse, but when we got to it I realized it was fenced off, so we just ran to the driveway in front of it. It felt great to finally get there, 3 hours and 27 minutes after we started, and with an overall average pace of 10:18/mile.

Well, I gotta get Sarah ready for bed. This week is the first week of the taper. It's a 5, 8, 4 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, then just 12 miles on Saturday.

Well, see ya later!!


Tuesday 5 Miler


Wednesday 10 Miler


Thursday 5 Miler



Saturday 20 Miler!!