Starting to Recover

I am feeling much better today after a good night's rest, although my guess is I'll still need a nap sometime later today. I am hoping to get to the gym to do some quad-strengthening exercises, since that seems to be helping with my knee achiness. I am finally learning that ice is my friend.

I still can't believe we ran over 18 miles yesterday. Our run was only supposed to be 18, but we misunderstood our directions, got a little lost, and probably tacked on a half mile as a result (good thing we asked directions from those nice folks in the blue car over on whichever road it was that we ended up on).

In any case, 18+ miles seems like a long way, and it almost seems sort of close to 26.2 until you realize, "Wow, we'd have another 8 or so miles to go at this point." In any case, I am pretty confident we'll be ready for the marathon. I think we could finish a marathon at this point, but it certainly wouldn't be pretty. I'm glad we have another solid 20-miler in our future to help us prepare...although I am still not sure it will be pretty. I hope they take any race photographs early on, before we are hobbling along at mile 24.

I ran in junior high and high school, and then off and on during college and while we lived in New Mexico. Most of my late 20s were spent away from exercise and in a cubicle. In any case, I have run off and on for about half of my life now, so I am generally familiar with how my body reacts to 3- to 7-mile runs, as this was my normal range before this marathon effort. I am not, however, familiar with how my body reacts to 15+ mile runs. This is completely and entirely new, and I can see why people say you should run one marathon just to figure out how to train for one, then maybe later try to whittle down your finish time. I need to eat and drink while I run, which is new. Eating is odd and surprisingly difficult for me. Those Gu packets provide a lot of energy, and I try to drink enough water with them, but I am just not used to them. Yesterday, at about mile 15 I got a wicked little stomach cramp. For me, this almost never happens past the first few miles of a run. Generally, If I am going to get a stomach cramp, I get it early on. Anyhow, that went away and then my running partner commented that I suddenly sounded congested. Who knows where that came from.

Aside from the tired knees and sore feet, it just felt like my body underwent some changes between mile 1 and mile 18, but I couldn't pinpoint exactly what they were. I think I still need to drink more water early on, as I seemed to be drinking more water toward the end, which I'm guessing would signal I hadn't hydrated quite as well as I thought I had throughout the run. I probably need to eat a bit more too. It is a good thing I have more time to work out the kinks.