Day four of the “Get up early challenge” was a success. 🙂 I had a great night’s sleep and when my alarm went off at 5:15am today, I was up and ready to go! The sun was just starting to come up when I was driving to the park, it just felt like a great day to run.Â
The plan was to run 15 miles with my friend Peter at 7:30a, so I snuck in an extra 5 miles before he got there (to make it a total of 20)…thus the super early wake up call.
The first 5 miles, I barely can remember. I had my ipod in and I was jamming along. My sister, Mikaela made me a mix CD for christmas, so it was a fresh group of songs I’ve never heard, it was pretty awesome.Â
After 5 miles, I was warmed up and ready for another 15! (Translation: already a sweaty mess!) I was rocking my Dana-Farber race day singlet today too! You know, just to show off try it out!
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I still don’t really know what shirt I’m going to wear underneath for the marathon. The singlet is kind of see-through, so I have choose wisely. Might as well go with the red Dana-Farber training shirt so at least it matches, yes?
 
Once I met up with Peter, we set off to conquer 15 more. It started out great, we were cruising our way around the park. At mile 10, we refueled (i totally ran out of water…. I think I drank FIVE of my fuel belt bottles today! And it wasn’t even that hot! Good thing there will be water refill stations on the marathon course!Â
Then somewhere between miles 16 and 17…. I totally crashed. I started to get a little woozy and light headed. I was drinking tons of water, eating my salt packets and munching on my shot blocks the entire time… but it was blatantly clear that I didn’t have enough calories. Lesson learned: bring sports drinks and more snacks. Period. Such a rookie mistake, I was kind of embarrassed. So I decided to finish out the rest of the milage walking, and Peter finished ahead of me.
My muscles felt great, my stomach felt great… so I knew I was totally fine with training. I decided to just take in the scenery and applaud myself on doing 20 miles! It’s such a huge training milestone. This left me time to enjoy the ducks!
They have absolutely no running etiquette though. They are usually right on the running path. So cute though.
And speaking of cute:
Hahaha totally kidding.
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At mile 19, they had free chair massages set up in the park!!!! I’m not kidding! I never turn down free chair massages and I totally thought it was worth while to have a 10 minute massage before I finished my milage. HAHA for accountability sake, I kept my watch going. Can’t wait to see what THOSE splits look like. HAHAHA
But it was TOTALLY worth it. My shoulders get SUPER tight when I run, so it was nice to have someone dig their elbow into it and loosen it up. So convenient they were in the park! HAHAÂ
And now the splits…. some I’m proud of, some not so much, but alas, 20 miles is 20 miles, right?
Most milage (except for the last 3 miles) was done with 5:5 intervals:
Mile 1 – 13:02 (including a half mile walking warmup)
Mile 2 – 11:43
Mile 3 – 12:48
Mile 4 – 12:40
Mile 5 – 12:04
Mile 6 – 14:14 (refuel at the car)
Mile 7 – 11:35
Mile 8 – 11:47
Mile 9 – 12:12
Mile 10 – 12:48
Mile 11 – 13:39 (refuel at the car)
Mile 12 – 12:37
Mile 13 – 12:17
Mile 14 – 12:44
Mile 15 – 13:33
Mile 16 – 13:02
Mile 17 -14:45 (the walking begins!)
Mile 18 – 17:16
Mile 19 – 37:20 (hahaha but that included a 15 minute stop for the massage!!)
Mile 20 -18:05
Total: 4 Hours, 50 Minutes
Average Pace Before walking: 12:42
Average Pace including the massage and walk breaks: 14:31Â
Today I just took it easy and caught up on some shows on my DVR. I need to ice my legs, but overall, I feel great and ready to rock and roll in Boston! Bring it!
