Week 10 - 14 Miles

Today I ran the furthest I have ever run.  Started out with shin splints in my right leg and stiff muscles in the my left leg.  I ran through it but it must have taken like 5 or 6 miles before the pain completely went away.  I've given up trying to keep up with the main group as they run slightly faster than what I can maintain and still finish fairly strong.  I am trying to keep my mile time between 10:00 and 10:30.  If I could average 10:30/mile I would finish my marathon with what I feel is a respectable time of about 4 hours and 30 minutes.

Perhaps what is most interesting is that even though I was hurting pretty bad I still felt like I could run several more miles.  My hips had started hurting around mile 11 or 12 but stopped around mile 13.  At that point my legs were pretty sore but it felt like they still had some go in them.  I feel this bodes well for me in my future longer runs and in the marathon race itself.

Overall I feel pretty good about the run.  Despite the muscle pain early in the run it really didn't slow me down that much.  Perhaps the one thing I lack the most right now is the mental strength to push through hills on some of my training runs.  That is something that will just take time and might not be something I develop before my race in May but could eventually get much better at later on.  I have only been running for almost two years now, so I feel it still makes me pretty green.  I think my marathon will teach me a lot about myself that I do not know right now.


I felt pretty sore after the run but no worse than I've felt after a half marathon and the pain went down considerably after getting back home.  Of course I took some Aleve several hours before bed in order to help me get some sleep.  I felt great the next day with only a little stiffness.

Now that we have entered Daylight Savings I will have more light in the evening hours so it will be easier to get some shorter runs in after work.  I also got some new running  shoes for my marathon as my current pair of shoes are starting to show some of the mileage I have put on them.