The dreaded 20 miler: take two

After my horrible 18 miler last week (I actually only ran 16) I could not mentally wrap my head around my 20 miler this week. I took off Saturday at 6:50 knowing that I was starting late. 3 miles into my run it started raining. Actually, pouring. There was lightning on all sides of me. I was wet and miserable and there was no way I was going on. I ran home with the intentions of heading over to the rec center to finish as much of my run as possible. The rec center was closed so I ended my run of a mere 6 miles. I felt like such a failure but there was no way I could have ran that in the rain. So, Monday I decided I needed to buck up and do it. I decided to do a 4 mile loop 5 times. I just couldn't be too far from home. It was a mental thing. I also decided to not pack my water/powerade and decided to stop at home. That was helpful. The run was actually pretty good and I mixed it up by running the route backwards and running on the other side of the road to avoid boredom. When I hit 13 miles I just knew I could not run that route again. I was struggling physically and mentally. I also knew I couldn't stop at home again. I ran through my old neighborhood and up and down streets to get the last of my mileage in. I ended up running 19.69 miles. That was all I could muster but I was proud of myself.

I actually feel pretty good today and this is the worst of my damage. I get a darned blister on this toe every time I run but this is my far the worst one I've had. I'm gonna have to do more preventative next time. 16 miles this week...that seems so easy now!