Hyland post #13 - Completing the 20 miler

Rest day on the schedule today!

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Here's a recap of week #12 of 18 weeks of marathon training:

Miles Run:  36.30 miles
Days Run:  5 days
Cross Training:  10 miles on the bike and weights
Time Training:  6 hours and 21 minutes

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Well, this past week was a cut back week and I can say that it was nice to have that.  Unfortunately, I'm still dealing with an ear infection.  The medication I started on did not work so I had to get a new prescription.  Hopefully this will fix me up.  I really need to get better for my half marathon in a month.  Fortunately, it has not interfered with my training as I was able to get everything done last week.

This week is a big week(only 6 weeks left!) with 43 miles on the schedule but the reason it's so big is that I have my first of two 20 milers coming up this weekend.  Yikes!  This will be my fifth 20 mile run in training that I've done so I've gotten used to them - not!  20 miles is a long way to run, in my opinion.  Because my training plan has two of them, the plan is to do the first one at an easy pace with an overall flat run.  I'll also be running it on crushed limestone on the Paint Creek Trail to help easy the pounding on my legs.

Last time I ran 20 on Paint Creek - that's a long way!

The plan will be to run the entire length of the Paint Creek Trail starting in Rochester and going to Lake Orion and back.  That will give me 18 miles.  For the remaining two, my plan(assuming I can convince my running buddy) is to run a couple miles up Tienken Road and back.  For those of you that don't know the area, Tienken is quite hilly.  I'd like to run 17 on the trail which is flat and then do two miles on Tienken where it's very hilly then back to Rochester.  The reason I want to do this is that we still need more hills training plus I want to see how my legs take going up hills after running 17 miles.  It should help give me an indicator on how my training is going since the Flying Pig is a very hilly course.  I also plan to get up an hour or two early to eat something just as I would for the race.  Effectively trying to simulate what race day will bring.

So that's the plan for the week.  I ran all last week alone since my running buddy was on vacation so I'll be happy to get out there with him again(especially for 20 miles).

Have a great day and....Keep Running!!!!