I always chuckle when I write about a “great” 20 mile run, as if there isn’t such a thing, but again today I prove that proper preparation and attitude are the ingredients for a great long run. I wrote last weekend about how the long run was not treating me well and decided to change my approach as I headed into the weekend, here’s the changes I made:

• Got a good nights sleep last night (thats always important regardless of the distance)
• I headed out at 5:30am, before the sun got hot and before the traffic got bad
• I changed my course again this week, although the steep hills that I thought I was going to avoid this, came up in a different place, I just can’t win
• I took money with me to get water along the way from a vending machine since I never have enough, and I actually stopped at got some at mile 16.5, and it was quite refreshing
• I had extra gel’s with me just in case
• I paced myself properly right from the start. This week I actually stuck to the 8:45/mile pace like I’m supposed to. Last week I ended up doing closer to 8:30/mile, which at this stage is just too fast

So what do I think the differing factor was this week? The water, definitely. The water I carry with me is usually pretty warm by about mile 12 or so, and unless I buy another one of those annoying fuel belts (i’m not a fan of them), this is the way I’ll have to do it. I never realized how dehydrated you actually get until you realize that I put down 20oz of water, and still wanted more.. its surprising, I really thought I had it under control. After I sucked that water down at 16.5, the last 4 miles was nothing .. I was craving to do more.

I did mention both yesterday and above that I plotted out a course to avoid the major hills that I struggled with in the spring (and which really beat up my legs), only to find out that I ended up still doing hills anyway, although they were not quite as steep, they were still hills. Thats the one thing I don’t like about a course profile, or gmap pedometer or map my run. The elevation is always deceiving if its a long distance you’re profiling .. its not their fault, its the nature of the beast I guess. Regardless it was a great workout, i’m looking forward to the next run and have actually recovered pretty quick already today…

One last note on the course though, there are 2 roads I may not choose to run again, just because they are very narrow and have lots of curves on them .. it felt dangerous because of the blind spots and its probably something. I’m sure everybody knows the type of roads i’m talking about, where when a car comes, you’re basically in a ditch … its dangerous because you can get hit, and you can also turn an ankle or fall in the ditch or something.

With it being the 4th of July, this means that most everyone who is training for fall marathons are somewhere within their training now. I’m running an early marathon this year (Lehigh Valley Health Network Marathon on September 13th) so i’ve got a bit of a jump on those doing early October or November marathons. I hope the early training makes me better for my later marathons … i’m surprised though to not see so many people out running early in the mornings, you’d think people would want to get their runs in early and before the heat gets too bad, but maybe thats just me… (or maybe there are just nobody running marathons around me, who knows)