22 Miles Down - Let the Taper Begin!

Picture was at the finishline of last week's Miracle Mile 15K - my husband and I finishing together.

This weekend was the last big run before the Marine Corps Marathon. My husband, who is training for Disney, was scheduled to do 14 miles. I was to do 22 miles. I enjoyed my run on the Seminole Wekiva Trail with Maddy so much last weekend, we decided to return for this week's run. I knew the shade it would offer in the later miles would be a life saver.

We were going to try to hook up with Maddy and run with the Team in Training crew on Saturday, but there was lots of rain in the area on Saturday morning. We figured we would get a better chance for a dryer run on Sunday. The forecast called for partly sunny skies, 30% chance of rain, 85% humidity with a temp ranging from 76 to 88 degrees (which was to feel like 100 deg F). An early start would be best. So we were up early today and ready to start running at 6:45 am (I am not sure we could have started at 6 am without headlamps on this trail). My dear husband ran my slower pace and we ran 4 min and walked 1. We ran down the trail for 7 miles before turning back to complete the first 14 miles. We finished that in about 2 hours, 49 min. I did really well with my heart rate, keeping it in the 140's for the first 9 miles of the run, then in the low 150's until approaching 14 miles.

We made our transition - my husband to a bicycle while I traded my CamelBak for my pre-filled fuel belt - and headed back out. Just 8 more miles to go....

By about 16 miles, I started to really feel it - felt that I had to work for it. By 18 miles, I had to really focus to ignore the pain in my feet, to relax and just run. I started walking every 2 min but I still managed to run more than I walked. The last few miles were tough - but I did much more running this time at the end than I did with my 21 miler a few weeks ago. The shade of the trail combined with a breeze and some light rain (and associated cloud cover) really helped out. I would have burned out much sooner in the sun.

My final time: 22 miles in 4:38:38 (avg pace of 12:40 min/mi, AHR of 152bpm. This time was 6 minutes faster than the tough 21 miler I did 3 weeks ago.

I knew my feet were wet - there was squishing going on during the run, but no blisters. The surprise was that the black bottom of my orthotics caused my feet to turn black, including the nails of those two toes that I hurt earlier. After cleaning up my feet (couldn't get all the black off), my two middle toe nails started to come loose. One came completely off and had a think new nail underneath. The other came half off with nothing but skin underneath (I know, TMI, but this is my first lost toenail encounter).

Let the taper begin!!!

(Side note on mom - she came home from the hospital on Friday - doing ok but they are still investigating why her blood count was so low. Thanks again for all the well wishes).