Boo-f**king-yah!

Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I RAN 22 MILES.

22 effing miles!

Every last step of it!

And it hardly hurt!

yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss :)

22.15 miles in 3hrs and 41 min. 20 days till M-Day. Time to taper.

Bring it on, marathon. I'm ready for you!


____________________________________________________

I am so relieved/excited/in disbelief/amazed/who knows what else that James and I were able to run 22 miles. I was friggin Scared about how my knee was going to handle it. I took precautionary measures to make sure my knees had adequate rest before the run, and spent the 4 days prior to the run foam rolling the sh!t out of my ITB and thighs. Thank goodness I bought that foam roller. Oh and I switched from plain old ibuprofen to Aleve.

And guess what?

It worked!

I had pretty minimal knee pain for the entire 22 miles. Obviously, there was some pain (I mean, it is 22 effing miles), but none of that sharp, debilitating, insane pain that I had last week. Success!

Instead of doing a play by play, I think I will sum up this run in "successes" and "fails".

Successes:

• Taking the two days before the run to rest and foam roll/stretch like my life depended on it.
  
• Foam roll
• Switching from Ibuprofen to Aleve
  
• Taking said Aleve night before, and morning of run
• Not drinking too much liquid on the run and feeling like a bloated whale
• Eating/drinking enough calories for breakfast. Here's what I ate:
• 1.5 Clif Z-bars
• 1 banana
• 2 slices toast with jelly and honey
• 1 waffle topped with 1 carton pumpkin yogurt and honey
• some scrambled eggs
• a handful of gummy bears
• coconut water
• a couple of bites of Power Bar
• a couple of Clif Shot Blocks
  and yup, I ate all this BEFORE the run, and still managed to get hungry during the run

• Careful application of Body Glide ;)
• remembering to put sun block on my face
• Running early enough in the morning
• Choosing a very flat route: I recorded the fasted 16 mile split yet!
  
• Carrying enough shot blocks to share with James who was close to bonking again
• Post-run pizza with all the fixins!
  

Fails:

• Some a$$hole stole our "Runner's Goodie Bag" we stashed at mile 18.5 with waters/gummies/sandwiches. This ROYALLY sucked as we were both very low on water by this point and extremely hungry. I ran sooooo fast the last half mile till the "runner's bag," looking forward to the sammie. When I realized it had been stolen..... tears. 'Twas a very sad day. But it did give me an adrenaline rush being angry.... I kept chanting "ba$tards, ba$tards" (excuse the language, but it's hard to be nice at mile 18.5 when thirsty and hungry) which kept me going for at least a mile.
  
• Not drinking enough water at the previous resting spot (I was NOT expecting to have our stuff stolen!)
• Not carrying a credit card to make quick stop at gas station to buy more water/fuel. Reminder to self: Always run with spare cash/credit card on the long runs!
• My running singlet. For some reason, it kept bothering me.
• Not wearing sunblock around my ankles. There's a two inch segment of flesh that neither my running tights nor my socks cover. Now I have a Really Awkward tan line right there. Oops.

But all in all, the run was as good as a first 22 miler can get. I felt SO incredibly relieved/happy that I was able to run it. I honestly thought my knee would give out by mile 16 again. I fully expected NOT to be able to finish the run.

But I ran every last step godamit! haha! :) Can you tell I'm super stoked?
Like I told James, had this run NOT gone well, I would have been SUPER DUPER depressed/anxious/cranky/nervous/scared the entire three weeks till the marathon. I seriously would have been the biggest Betty Downer the world has ever seen, for the entire tapering period. So it's good for both my sanity, and James', that I was able to run this successfuly.

And now all I have to do is sit back and enjoy tapering weeks. I'll probably run a Turkey Trot, but mostly will stick to yoga and foam rolling for now. Gotta get that knee all fixed up!

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Marathon time is here!!!!!!