New Milestone

I finally reached 40 miles in one week. And, did 17 miles at one time. Or something very close to that.

Yesterday morning's run was not only long, but terribly hot,and terribly slow. I felt pretty good throughout most of it, though. Because I was running with a group also training for a marathon, we all did a pretty good job of taking care of ourselves during the run, including lots of water stops and electrolyte replacement.

Here's a couple lessons I learned on yesterday's long run:
1) Ice down the bra helps a lot
2) At about mile 12, I start to need more than just gels
3) I don't know what to eat after mile 12 because I tried a powerbar and, as before, it sat in my stomach like a rock and caused lots of cramps and pains. So I need to keep experimenting. Something more substantial, but not so hard to digest.

Not too bad, actually. Considering I had a hard week of running leading up to that, my body managed to maintain fairly well. Some ITB pain crept up during the run, so I need to start being more cognizant of stretching regularly and start icing after all of my runs. It was also suggested that I get a foam roller made specifically for stretching the ITB. Not sure what this is so I'm going to do some investigating today.

Overall, it felt good. I'm on track.

I know I will have moments in the future when I look back on this period of my life, and in those moments I'll wonder if it's really worth it to work this hard for running. And to my future self I want to say "Yes, it is most definitely worth it. I feel better than I have felt in years, and am in probably the best shape of my life." Should that not be enough, I just need to picture Judy's legs. The leader of our running group is 50 this year and she has the most fantastic legs on any woman (or man) I've seen!