This morning: TWENTY MILES BABY!

As bad as my eighteen was, my twenty was AWESOME! I think part of it was mental preparation; all week I have been telling myself that twenty would be a piece of cake. But it was also physical preparation; I trained harder this week than I have been, including doing push ups and punching my heavy bag to try to avoid the shoulder pain I endured last week. That definitely helped my shoulders.

Distance: 20.26 mi
Duration: 5:13′52″
Pace: 15′29

It’s worth mentioning my iPod says I burned through 3,519 calories, too. I may start including that info when I do the summaries of my longer runs.

Okay, I am super proud that my first five was my fastest five to date! If I recall, the first five was 1:08′25″. My previous best was 1:10. So I am really quite proud of that first five.

Our first ten took us roughly 2:25. That’s not bad. We fell apart for our second ten, but we did the miles. (I ran with Candy again today.) Do click over and see our time per mile.

I am shocked at how fast mile 16 was.

Candy was dragging today, so I’m really proud of her for gutting it out. I didn’t start to feel pain until mile fifteen, and I didn’t have real pain until mile nineteen. So that’s awesome, too.

It was cold. So I wore a sweatshirt in addition to my regular shorts and tee shirt. I’m glad I had it. I almost didn’t bring the sweatshirt because I figured after two or three miles I’d be too hot. But out on the trail, it was so windy that I didn’t warm up enough to mind the sweatshirt until mile nine.

Instead of having us do ten miles out and ten back, they had us do five out, five back, out and back. That gave us a bathroom every five miles that I inexplicably needed. And it gave us food halfway through, and at the end, since that was the start/mid/end point. We were running the West Orange Trail, starting in Winter Garden and heading out toward Clermont. Winter Garden is having some sort of sidewalk festival today, so running through down town was chaotic.

I got my first rush of endorphins around mile thirteen, I think. And I was so happy to have them. Then, the endorphins kept coming, at 15, 17, 19. It was nice to have the endorphins to counteract the aches and pains. I have to tell you: I feel great! I still do. It’s been an hour and a half, and instead of laying on the couch comatose, I’m blogging and just feel fabulous! It feels good to feel great! I can’t explain.

You know what? I’m only six miles short of a marathon! Candy and I are talking about getting together next Saturday to do another twenty together (our team is not training next weekend due to some random holiday or something). Now that I’ve done twenty, twenty-six is not as intimidating as it should be.

Please, please, please donate so that I can actually participate in this marathon. I still need your help to finish raising my final $617. That’s not a lot of money, but I’m running out of time; December 16th is rapidly approaching.

While our team was out on the trail this morning, my mentor sat back at the start and made beaded bracelets for everyone. Every five minutes, another person is diagnosed with a blood-born cancer. So, for every five minutes we were on the trail, she added a bead to our bracelets. My bracelet has 53 beads. Fifty-three people were diagnosed while I ran. And, I think every ten minutes someone loses their battle. It is so important that we fund cancer research. Fifty-three new diagnoses this morning. Seeing this chain of red beads is really something. I am proud to be helping raise money for such a wonderful cause.

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