Week 20 & 21: Illness and Longest Run
Well, it looks like every other week update is working with me. I know I have committed to write my training update weekly, but lately that is very hard to do. So there. That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.
This past two weeks have been very challenging for me. I got sick. Really, really sick. I’m talking the kind that leave you with absolutely no energy. I had constant fever, nausea and do not even get me started with a headache. It was awful. I didn’t go to work for a week as well, and all I did was sleeping. I managed to sneak 3 run in the past 2 weeks, in addition to my very long run. A few of three miler jog, just to get moving. I was dizzy and almost fainted the first time around!
I was worry and anxious. My race is 3 weeks away and I took a week of running. I worried that it will ruining my training. I worried that my strength will get affected by it. I worried. A lot.
Then Saturday came around. It was my longest training run. A whole 22 miles.
I still look hawt in miles 16
I woke up antsy. It was a cold 32 degrees foggy morning. I could have gone earlier, but I decided to enjoy my morning and run a bit later. I had my usual pre-long run breakfast. Toasted english muffin with peanut butter, drizzle of honey and slice of banana. Around 10:30am – I finally got up and get ready. I wore my long tights and my running jacket on top of my base layer.
We got to the trail around noon’ish, and I told the husband that I want to run slightly different route. I want to run in a manageable route in my head. See — I know long run is more than just physical. It’s a lot of mental too, so I broke down this route to six-3 miler run, plus 4 miles. From where we park the car, I ran east and back (which is total 6 miles) and did that three times. Then I ran the 2 more miles east and back, which made it total 22 miles. I have to say, that trick work. It got kinda boring since it’s the same stretch of trail, but this by far, was my best run. I felt strong the entire time and I only have to focus on getting me back to the car, which is about 6 miles round trip. The only caveat on this plan was I completely underestimate how dark this trail get when the sun down. I usually ran the opposite route which have more open area, so even though there were no more sun, the trail got some lights from street/residential. Thanks to the flashlight app on the iPhone — my husband mounted the iPhone on his bike and I ran the last 2 miles stretch with the light from it. It was… different. I am not a big fans in walking/hiking, let alone running in darkness so my mental focus was all over the place for the last couple miles. I was running even faster as I just want to be done. When I finally reached the car, I realized for the first time that I can really do this marathon thing. I know I can complete 26.2 miles and I have to tell you, that’s an awesome feeling to have.
Thank you Karen Lopez (t) for introducing me to running. Thank you Erin Stellato (t) and Jes Borland (t) for inspire me even more.
My 'I just ran 22 miles' face
As usual, I have a whole group of people in twitter that constantly cheered me on during my run. You know who you are. Thank YOU very, very much for being there for me and supporting me the whole way. I love you all.
Fundraising
I didn’t do much in the last two weeks on this front as well. I have one last email update to send and hopefully, that will generate some donation. Please visit my fundraising page at http://tinyurl.com/RobelMarathon for more information
Great job, Yanni. I like the idea of your breaking the long run into segments with shorter goals. I usually try to do a long out and back on my LSDs, but I think next time I might give your technique a try.
Thanks Karen! It really did help me. I looked at my pace afterwards, I maintained steady pace from the beginning to end which for me a huge thing. I usually get slower at the end, but this time I didn’t. I even have negative split (but I think that’s have something to do with darkness 🙂 )
Woo hoo! You’re doing SO AWESOME! I’m super impressed and inspired.
Thank you!! I had a lot of support too!