Day 118 - 49 Days To Go

The final week of phase III begins. 2 miles (3.2km) easy pace, 15 miles (24.1km) marathon pace, 2 miles (3.2km) easy pace. My marathon pace is 4:36 minutes/km - and I wasn't close to it at 4:58 minutes/km. I was especially struggling towards the end of the 15 miles. I was thinking I should move to the lake - that way I can run the final stretch of my workouts downhill and not uphill.

It was a cold day (-2C, feels like -8C) but there was beautiful sunshine. The gel experiment continues - but I'm having trouble figuring out exactly how it well it will work during the race because it has been too cold out. At room temperature it looks like the goo will squeeze easily out of my container. After 30 minutes in the cold it's not coming out easily.

I also learned through my research is that you're not suppose to combine the gels with Gatorade - you should be having it with sips of water - otherwise the "balance" is off. I had three of my mini bottles filled with water and one with Gatorade - and was empty about 20 minutes before the end of my run. I won't be able to go a full marathon with only my fuel belt.

Once I got home the first half hour was spent limping around saying bad words in between gulps of chocolate milk. I wasn't in pain, but I was very, very sore - a sore I haven't felt yet. I wasn't creative with my swear words - I kept saying the same one over and over again - but it made me feel better.

It's been almost two hours since I got home and although I'm still moving very slowly, I'm feeling better. The weekly mileage is set at 70% of my peak so I'm already half way to my goal of 59.5km.