20 miler in the bag

As I figured, the day was excellent, but the run was a struggle. Gory details here:

I was cruising along through the first 10 miles, but as soon as I reversed direction, I knew I was in trouble. It became harder and harder to maintain pace, and my legs felt worse and worse. At 15 miles both achilles tendons were complaining, and my sciatic was affecting my gait on the right side. My right heel was getting numb and every so often I was getting shooting pain down my right leg. This is “not good” as I thought I was past this problem years ago.

I pressed on and finished the run, but had to take several walk breaks along the last 5 miles.

I also need to pack more calories for the run. By the time I got back to my car and started to drive home, I was in full bonk. I got lost getting out of Hillsborough and it was only by sheer luck that I ended up back in Manville, where I found a Subway.

As I was waiting for my sandwich, I began to get the shakes from lack of food and from the cold. I was still in my shorts, but had changed into a dry long-sleeve t-shirt. I began to get really, really cold and my legs felt like someone had worked them over with a baseball bat. I got my food to go, and sat in the car, in the sun with the engine running, and heat on full blast.

I downed a bottle of OJ to get my blood sugar set, then slowly ate my sandwich. It’s amazing how good a crappy sandwich tastes after a 20 mile run.

Once I got home, I got into the hot, hot shower and stayed there until everything was warm and loose again. Heaven, sheer heaven!

I’m feeling pretty good now, but I have serious doubts about the Philly Marathon in 4 weeks. I’m about 75% sure I’m going to bag the race, but keep up the long run-training at least through the end of November.