Today's long run: I was totally April fooled.

In case you were wondering since last I blogged, I did my usual total body weight workout on Friday and fully planned on doing the last 20 mile long run on the training plan on Saturday. Until I got up, looked out the window and my inner meterologist told me two things:

1) It was raining heavily for crying out loud, and
2) The winds were so strong our poor trees were all curved at odd angles and begging for mercy.

Naturally, I went to plan B, which was to do the entire 20 miles on the treadmill.  Yeah.  Well, I did get dressed and get all my gels and water together on the 'mill and even started running on the treadmill at one point...but my quads seemed really fatigued and the thought of doing 20 miles on the thing made my brain cells cry.  So I stopped.  And then I proceeded to sit on my butt the rest of the day, watching the move I rented to watch on the treadmill (Thor: Ragnarok, which was pretty freaking awesome) and then went to bed early instead of at least getting in a 30 minute ride on the spin bike.

I've told you all before: I'm a moron like that.

So, out of sheer guilt at my laziness I got up super early, cleaned the house, and then headed out the door to get that 20 miler done.  Here's the overview of the run:

Don't let what looks like a good run fool you.

While that run looks pretty fantastic for a slowy joey like me, let me tell you that a LOT of suck was completely and utterly embraced on this run.  And, just like any of my long runs, it had some good, some bad, and pretty disgustingly ugly things.  Let's review them, shall we?

The good:

• I remembered to carry hand-warmers. Because it was pretty cold for April 1st (more on this in the "Bad" section below), I was impressed with myself when I actually had hand warmers when my right hand began to go numb in mile 14.
• I did not freeze to death.  I was wearing fleece-lined RBX tights on top of some Brooks thermal long-ish running undies I got about 5 years ago (they no longer sell these that I know of) and my legs were pretty toasty the entire time.  A nice Reebok thermal mock base layer with a nice Brooks running jacket completed the outfit kept my upper body from freezing to death, which is always a plus.  I would have taken a picture for you, but getting in the shower after the run was my main priority rather than starting to icicle-up while taking pictures.
• As you'll find out below, just freaking finishing all 20 miles was a major accomplishment.
• I got to wear my tie-dye Brooks Launch 5s.  Always a good thing.

The bad: 

• Hey, it's April, so the weather will be awesome now....APRIL FOOLS.  Remember when I told you how yesterday it was super duper windy?  Well, it was also 50 freaking degrees outside, which just added insult to my windy injury of not running.  Could it be 50 degrees today? Absolutely not.  Mother Nature totally April fooled me into thinking that today would be a nicer day to run, and it most definitely wasn't thanks to the mid-30s temps and the cold lesser-velocity-than-the-day-before-but-still-high-enough-to-notice winds.  
• My calves and quads were tired by mile 9.  I don't know why my legs were so whiny, but they were.  I took in my gels as normal, and even had a banana when I was at the house answering my usual call from Mother Nature at mile 4.  Probably time to lay off the lower-body weight work.
• Large dog and I did the first 9 miles way too fast.  The intended pace for this run was marathon pace plus 15 seconds, making that around 9:35.  There were way too many 9:15s and 9:25s in those 9 miles (with one 10 minute mile only because large dog kept stopping to investigate ditches for absolutely no reason at all other than dog).

The ugly:  

• This run was a shorter version of every bad marathon I have ever had.  Because I started way too fast (hello, Dallas Marathon) and I suspect the cold was affecting my pace, the back half of this run was way slower than the first.  I was lucky to pull off any splits below 10:00, which that 9:39 pace from the run summary picture above doesn't tell you.  While this is the fastest 20 miler I have done on record, that picture doesn't show you that I stopped about 6 times to catch my breath and massage a nagging sore spot in my left butt cheek that started acting up.  For me, stopping at all is a huge disappointment, but it was the only way I could think of to get all 20 miles done and not call the hubbs to come and pick me up in defeat.  And run/walking wasn't an option because I was afraid I would freeze in place during the "walk" part of it.  
• Speaking of freezing, I thought I would never be warm again.  A hot shower, two layers of warm clothes, and two blankets weren't enough to convince me I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life in search of warmth.

ZOMG cold is all I will ever know FOREVER

• That feeling when you are in the last 10th of a mile of a 20 mile run and Mother Nature is calling in a way you absolutely MUST answer.  When that happens, you start running through your front yard to reach your house because running down to the road leading to your house will only result in disaster and embarrassment.  

EMERGENCY IN PROGRESS

Learnings aren't ugly; they're beautiful and they are below:

• This was one of those runs where you consider never training for a marathon EVER AGAIN.
• It's also one of those runs where you realize Mother Nature can never, EVER be trusted unless you're trusting her to do bad things.
• It doesn't help that there's nothing but brown to look at this time of year.  Brown and asphalt.
• The only thing that helped was grabbing the biggest Starbucks refresher I could order after I managed to find the warmth again.

Tomorrow's workout:  Upper body weights and stuff.