NOLA Week 9: Twice as Nice...

Distance: 20.08 miles <-- yep, I earned those .08 miles.
Route: Clyde Fant Parkway Trail x 2
Time: 3 hrs. 42mins. 23 secs.

I didn't blog my run last week, mainly because I kinda punked out. No, I take it back, I didn't punk out completely. My mom came to visit! The last time she came to see us was when Lauren was born. I got up early last Saturday with every intention to do 14 miles, but alas, it was beginning to rain and I decided (wisely) that spending time with my mom was much more important. She left on Sunday, and of course it was pouring down rain all day. I hit the gym and did 4 miles of intervals and then did 8.3 miles on Tuesday. Kind of made up for it, but I decided to let bygones be bygones and focus on the run scheduled for today.

20 miles. Sometimes it's hard to fathom how far 20 miles is. When I write it, it looks almost easy. Kind of like "Pshaw! 20 miles...what's the biggie?". To put it in perspective, 20 miles will take you from our house to the Texas/Louisiana state line. For my California peeps, 20 miles is equivalent of going from Dixon to Travis AFB or from San Diego International Airport to the Mexican border. The sad thing is that isn't even the total mileage for a marathon. I get to add a 10K (6.2 miles) to those 20 miles in order to equal a marathon.

I woke up at 5:20 this morning and got all my gear together and hit the road. I decided to run Clyde Fant today. You may ask yourself, how on earth do you get 20 miles out of a 10-12 mile trail? Simple...you do it twice. I was getting a little tired of the base trail and I knew that I needed to see other life today. Often on the base trail, you're absolutely alone. I think in the past 6 weeks on the base trail, I have only run across one other person. Clyde Fant is also more challenging, as there are rolling hills and I'd have to be in the game mentally the whole time since I'd have to run it twice.

It was cold outside when I started...34 degrees with a windchill of 26. My mom had bought me a new pair of running gloves, so I was happy that I got to try them out this morning. :) I felt pretty good. The legs were good and I warmed up pretty fast. I didn't check the time, as I really just didn't want to know. I made it down to Hamel Park and shot my first Gu. I ran the big loop at the end of the trail just to make sure that I got enough mileage in. I did my first turn around and headed back to my starting point. I saw my car and shot my second Gu. Once I did my second turn around, it was really hard. I'm not used to doubling back, and the lure of the car was pretty strong. It was still cold out, so I didn't need to deposit anything to the car and I just kept going. By this time, the wind had picked up and it made it a little more difficult. I hit the boat launch area and started to get a little tired. I realized that I only had 2 miles until my final turn around, so I just kept plugging away. I hit my final turnaround and shot my last Gu. I made sure that I had a caffeinated one just to make sure that I had enough umph to get me through the last 4 miles.

At this point, my legs were getting tired. Kind of sad, considering that during the race, I'll have 10 more to go. I shook that thought out of my head and just focused on the run I was currently doing. I hit the finish and was quite happy to be done. It was a beautiful morning and a really good way to finish the ugly training runs. I did an ice bath on my legs this morning and I'll be rolling them out before I go to bed. I feel pretty good while I write this, but I know tomorrow morning may be a whole different story. :)

So, there you have it. No ninjas, no crazy people or animals. Just a good run all around. Taper starts next week...12 for next Sunday, 8 the following and then the marathon. I'm as ready as I'm going to be. :)