the final long practice run of the year

this morning i ran about 23 miles in 3:48:33. i got tired around mile 15 and my knee really started to bother me. it started to hurt like it did back in may/june which is no fun at all. i think i'll try to take it easy this week and see how it goes. it feels ok now, but it was sure annoying to run with it for the last 8+ miles.

my glutes always get fatigued on these long runs. sucks! i guess i should have been doing some more squats and lunges during training or something? oh well.

it was cold here this morning (50's); my teeth chattered for the first 2 miles. i didn't really warm up until around mile 5. those gusts off the lakes were brutal! they felt good later on though. i wore a technical t-shirt and shorts.

i used the blue powerade they will be using at the marathon (drank around 16 oz), plus i drank some water obviously.

i had a gu 15 minutes before running, another gu at 1:18, final gu at 2:35.

i'm sore and feeling just a little bit tired/out of it. i was limping and moving quite slowly after i drove home and got out of my car to head up to my apartment. hehe.

i thought the run went ok, although i pretty much shuffled the last 2 miles. i was able to do mile 19 around 9:55, and mile 20 in 9:44. all the times are off just a bit because i never did re-calibrate my polar, but as long as i know its 3-5% short of the actual distance, thats not a problem.

those 3+ miles of hills that begin at 20 during the race are going to be brutal. thats all i could think of during my last few miles today. we'll see what i'm made of in about 21 days!