Distance: 40 miles
Time: 5 hours 22 minutes
Comments: An odd week but pretty important one, nonetheless. The original plan was to recover from the half-marathon and get a solid long run in before the big mileage of Week Five.
But after skipping an extra day due to exhaustion and concerns about the sore calf I decided to just run a consistent week of 5 mile runs and get the long run distance I planned. Then, after setting out on the long run I just decided to go for the 20 miler and see how it turned out.
Well, in retrospect, I probably could have used the extra week to build up but there really is no avoiding the amount of pain that kind of distance is going to deliver. I have a much better idea of how tough that last 10K is gonna be and it ain't pretty.
If I had any doubt about exactly the toll this thing took the post-run pain underscored it rather pointedly. I haven't hurt this much since last January.
The ice bath afterward was downright brutal. Possibly the worst one save the first. But, on the plus side, I now have the recipe down. Take one half-full tub, add 80 lbs of ice in two batches, insert one runner and VOILA! twenty minutes of almost unbearable agony!
That said, I shudder to think the shape I would be in if I had not done it.
The plus side is that having completed this first 20-miler I think I can fit in another long run of that distance in the training time I have left. That should help a lot come race day. I gotta get in the last of my quality miles over the next fortnight and hold my breath for the rest.
Getting the 20-miler in last week took a lot of the anxiety off me. I now know I've got the mininum of one under my belt that most experts reccomend. Now, its a matter of seeing if I can work in another without risking injury.
But the additional mileage means additional issues. Now I have the new shoes that seem to alleviate the calf problem I'm back dealing with the old problem - blisters on the ball of my foot. To address that I'm going to experiment with different lacings.
Because how you lace your shoe dramatically affects how the shoe fits around your foot. Typically, I use the classic 'runner's lacing' where the lace goes through the top of each eyelet and follows a criss-cross pattern. This has the advantage of being one of the strongest patterns you can use but it is unforgiving if your foot has any type of peculiarity.
Following that, I do a few simple alterations such as a loop-lacing lock to hold the ends of the laces firmly throughout the run. (This is also reccomended for runners with a narrow heel since it holds the back of the shoe more firmly as well)
But I might take the advice I found on the New Balance website that suggests using two small sets of laces and lacing the bottom three eyelets with one an the top three with the other. That allows a more custom 'fit' for the lower half of the shoe.
This week is a big mileage week but more due to the amount in the training runs rather than the big bastard on Sunday. Although I'll need a bit to recover from the long run yesterday, I still think I can get up into the 45 mile range.