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Saturday, December 26, 2015

Eighteen means something

Eighty degrees. Humidity 84%. Eighteen miles.

I tired to take an "I'm exhausted!"
selfie, but David kept lurking on
the stairs and leaning into the
picture making stupid faces, so I
couldn't stop laughing. So this is
what you get. 
I feel pretty good about that. I will have to see how my hips (especially the right side, which was bothering me in the race last week and still felt off this week) hold up later, but for now, this is a milestone.
In my experience, 18 miles says, "I'm ready for the pummeling of a marathon." It says, "I can handle running far with nothing but slimy sugar for fuel." It says, "Please don't check your pace, you'll just want to claw your eyes out." But anyway. The first two are positive. I know the 20 milers are really important, and I even think going over 20 is important, but to me, it's 18 miles that's the turning point.
Sixteen miles? That might be a casual long run if I'm feeling super fresh and fabulous some weekend.
Eighteen miles? That's nothing but marathon training! Nobody runs 18 miles for fun!

If all goes well this week, I might go ahead and say it out loud: I'm training for a marathon!

13 comments:

  1. Are you going to tell us which one? :)

    (I was tempted to say "congratulations", because the way you announced it reminded me of some of the pregnancy announcements I read...)

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  2. Oh, I'm so happy for you. It's been such a long road for you to get back to this point! I hope that hip keeps behaving.

    And my race was a whopping 7.8 miles. Hardly a major distance, but the limited runs I'd done before it were half the distance at best.

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  3. That is OUTSTANDING!!! That's a really tough run in those conditions, and you killed it, great job Grace!

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  4. Nice job! Looks like recovery last week went well if you could stand 18 miles yesterday in this brutal weather. GAH! Just horrible. Aren't you glad Ole Man River was last weekend?!? Thank you, Jesus!

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  5. OH! That is exciting. Go you! (I'm awful. I'm incapable of signing up/ training for a marathon without blabbing about it...so I'm impressed with that, too. You gonna keep us all in suspense for a while more as to which one?)

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    Replies
    1. I'm not actually registered! I'd just mentioned on the blog earlier that I was hoping to perhaps run RnR New Orleans, but it depended on how my training went. So if I recover well from 18, I'll probably start "officially" training (ie, make a training plan etc).

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  6. 18 miles definitely = marathon training because no one runs that far 'just for fun'. I am glad that it went well! It's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that it's still so warm and humid in NOLA, though. Meanwhile it's soooo cold here and we got snow. So I guess winter has made it's arrival. It better not overstay it's welcome, though!

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  7. I agree... anything over 17 miles to me feels like... MARATHON TRAINING. Hope the recovery is going well!! I'd love to see what kind of training plan you'll put together this time around.

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  8. Right on!! So excited for you. 18 miles in 80 degree heat? That sounds just like my marathon training this past summer. I hope your recover is going well!

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  9. Haha, 16 miles is my "serious" tipping point. 15 could be fun, but I've always said 16 was real. But yeah, I'm also doing RNRNO and I'm not training. Hoping to bust out a 15 miler tomorrow, and maybe another 15 on the weekend, then I'll get serious with a 16 next weekend...

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    Replies
    1. Definitely keep me posted on your plans - I'd love to see you! My "training" is basically just lengthening long runs at this point, too. I'm not healthy enough for the real stuff.

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