Week 15: The Long Run

This was it.

After about 4 months of training, we hit the Snoqualmie Valley River Trail for our 20 miler. This is the longest training run of our season. The weather was not going to cooperate as it dropped a ton on rain on us. Fortunately the tree cover helped to shelter us from some of the precipitation. Thankfully the weather was warmish. As usual I was wearing shorts and didn't have anything to cover my legs.

This was the last and final test to work out the how I'm going to run the marathon. The plan is to alternate 5 minutes of running with a 1 minute of walking. That seems to be the right combination for me. During the 20 miler, it left me fairly fresh for the latter half (though I did slow down slightly).

At the end of the trail, some Team in Training volunteers held out a finish line for me. Instinctively I picked up the pace for the last couple of yards. Lisa gave me a little medal to celebrate our longest run and a bag of treats to remind us of the little things over the course of the season.

Afterward we headed to Jim's (coach) place for a celebration of sorts. Coach became the grill master and I wolfed down a nice juicy burger. The season is drawing to close. The entire team has worked really hard and everybody is stronger and faster than when we first started. Only one challenge still remains at the end of June.