Only four long runs stand between me and the Big Sur International Marathon.
A large portion of my training is now behind me, as I just did my longest scheduled run of 22 miles on Sunday.
The race is set for Sunday, April 26, in California — a state I’ve never been to but am excited to visit.
I’ve logged plenty of miles in weekend long runs, increasing the distances to work up to Sunday’s run, along with five hill workouts. Five hill workouts combined with a pretty flat terrain around here unfortunately probably won’t have me ready to run Big Sur, but it’s better than nothing, and I will likely do some walking. As I mentioned before, I’m really more excited about the scenery — I am not trying to get a PR.
And, I still have time for a few more hill workouts.
Sunday’s run was really nice. My friend Michelle, who’s also training for a marathon, did the entire 22 miles with me, and Lynn and Trent also did part of the run.
It was not too difficult of a pace — although any pace begins to get difficult for such a long distance — and we pushed each other to keep running. I’m sure if I were by myself that I would have walked much more.
I got a painful blister in the run very early on, but thankfully, Michelle and Lynn ran back to my house with me so that I could deal with it and change the insert in my shoe, which was a huge help.
Other than getting sore from the distance, I felt good, and it was great to have the support through the whole run.
For my next long run, I’m dropping down to 14 miles, before going back up to 20 the following weekend. Then, I’ll be taking part in the Run for the Animals half marathon in Onancock, Virginia, for 13.1 miles, and then I’ll run eight about a week before race day.
She Runs by the Seashore 