Weekend of running. Lots of it.

So I did my Tuesday group run and then I didn't do any running until Saturday. Boy did I made up for it though. Saturday we did our first 20 miler of the 2013 marathon training season. 4 loops in Central Park. FUN!!!! I hate to say that I'm getting so tired of Central Park, I am really struggling to keep in interesting. But alas Central Park it is for about 5 more weeks! Then on Sunday I did the Bronx 10 miles. 30 miles in one weekend...woah!

So Saturday we did 2 upper loops which means Harlem Hills 2 times, then we did the lower loop 2 times. Cat Hill 4 times...etc etc. I felt strong loop 1 and 2 so 10 miles down and I'm feeling good. It looks like I struggled again around mile 12 then again around mile 16 and on. I was upset because on our last 18 miler I felt great so why was I struggling at the 16 mile point?? Well here are a few explanations and things I will need to adjust by marathon day.

1. The hills killed me. I need to get use to these hills for marathon day because bridges = hills and I'm sure there are hills all along marathon path.
2. Fuel properly. I was relying on the Gatorade that they were providing and so I didn't properly eat my chews and I'm sure out went my energy and my mental reliance on it.
3. I did take a few of those earlier miles at closer to 10:50 min/mile pace when I should have stuck to a 11 min/mile and saved myself for the later miles.

I'm hoping to remember these lessons for marathon day. I want to run the marathon ( the whole thing) but I want to do it as smart as possible.

Now on Sunday I'm suppose to do a recovery run and up until this past weekend I usually either don't do it or I do it on Monday. Well I was signed up for the Bronx 10 miler and I really didn't want to skip out on another paid run. I paid for both NYRR long runs and didn't attend either. I debated for a good 2 weeks on what to do up until the day of the race. I set myself up to go and show up ready to run it. How much of it I was going to run was still up in the air even as I ran it. I paced myself the whole way at about 11:30 pace (well I think because my watch was dead and the mapmyrun app isn't the bestest) and I felt quite okay running the whole time. I felt some aches and tightness but nothing that was extreme so I kept at it. After the fact my knees, left ankle and the arch of my left foot hurts but I'm hoping nothing that some ice and rolling cannot take care of. We shall see how I am doing by Tuesday. Hopefully a-ok. Until then I hope to maybe add planks, squats and lunges to my routine so I can strengthen my legs. :)