Sunday, April 20, 2008

Long Run Sunday: Twenty Miles of Running on Empty


Flickr image by phil.thuma
Today--after 13 weeks of ramping-up--was the first of two 20-mile training runs I'm scheduled to do between now and the Vermont City Marathon at the end of May.

Urp.

It was not easy. Of course.

But really, it was not easy. Especially when it came to the rolling hills that are pretty inescapable around here.

The hills became harder and harder as I went on, until even the puniest of hills (hillocks? hillettes? gentle inclines?) were basically impossible to run. At any rate, my brain could not convince my legs to get up off their asses and trot.

You have to admit, though, some of these hills are pretty mountainous (actual cross-section of my route):



The whole thing took four hours. Which pretty much means I need to scale back my expectations of this marathon. As in: maybe I should just be glad to finish?

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