Twenty days until the marathon and twenty miles (the longest training run on my plan) is in the books.  I finished the 20 miles yesterday. It is all tapering from here and positive thinking for my doctor’s appointment tomorrow.

The ankle twinges every once in awhile but nothing too bad.  The only negative side effects from running those twenty miles were that my feet swelled up on the run which made it difficult the last few miles since my sneakers were so tight. A few months ago I switched from a 7 1/2 to an 8 1/2 running sneaker and I swear judging by the pinch of my shoes yesterday I think they may have been up to a 9.  I noticed the same problem on the long run you’ll see below. I spent the last few miles dreaming of plunging my feet in an ice bath. It was awesome when I hit 20 and I finally got to do that. My feet were killing me. Otherwise no ill effects.  I was exhausted afterwards and barely moved from the couch the rest of the day but I expect that’s normal when you run so far.

While I was traveling last week I ran with two coworkers and I don’t think I could have hit the 20 mile mark without them having kept me on track. Thank you guys for taking your runs so painfully slow for me and my bum ankle! The runs appear below, you’ll see in the first one it was 90 degrees that day and we managed a 10:33 pace (which given that this was my first outdoor long run in quite awhile is not shabby) but the effects showed themselves in the 12 minute pace the next morning.

 

 

 

I am relieved that the big day is nearly here and think I’m prepared. It has been stressful at times training for this at the same time as dealing with issues at our old rental house, moving to a new house, and handling licensing related requirements that go along with working from a new state. I can’t say I would recommend training for a marathon if you have all this going on but I think I made it :).