20 Mile Run! and a Typical Week

The week was the usual..... 4 miles, 5 miles, 4 miles, 5 miles. All on the treadmill and all at an 8:34 to 9:05 pace. I also did some arm workouts and have been doing 100 crunches every night. Nothing exciting there!

BUT I did run 20 miles today and I do have to see it was great. Well great in some ways. Weather was perfect! Felt great for the first 10 miles. At 10 miles I honestly felt like I had been running maybe 45 minutes : ) LOVE when that happens. No belly issues. Started to sorta fall apart around mile 14. Just really tight and ready to be done : ( However I told myself to "get mad at it". This was my random mantra for the day. I told myself I was not going down with a positive split and I was not going to fall below a 9:15 pace. I had been 9:11 to 9:13 the whole time. Well I think I got mad alright : ) Check out these lap times....

9:06, 9:09, 9:17, 9:08, 9:15, 9:12, 9:13, 9:18, 9:17, 9:15, 8:57, 9:05, 9:17, 9:18, 9:00, 8:44, 9:37, 8:51, 9:07, 8:46 :)

That random 9:37 is when I was fighting with my phone trying to get some music to play. I was needing a pick me up. I felt great but at the end I was hurting! I know I am not ready to push out 6 more miles in that much pain but I do feel good that a sub 4:00 is in my near future! My average was 9:09 which is what it takes to get a 3:59:59.

I went ahead and registered for Marshall in West Virginia the first part of November. So I am going to go to PA thinking a sub 4 will be nice but have higher hopes for nailing it in West Virginia. The good thing about being a 50 state hopeful is that I have 45 states to go after West Virgina!