Today closes a 69mi week, my highest since mid-November.  Considering I had a day off on Friday, it was a pretty dense set of runs.

Yesterday I unknowingly tricked myself.  I had 10mi planned w/4MP.  Got out there and before I started the MP miles, I changed it to 5MP.  Then when I got to my halfway point I changed it to 11mi total but somehow still thought I was doing 5MP, so it wasn’t till I got home that I realized I did 6MP.    Silly, yes, but it’s funny to note that had I gone out with 6MP to begin with, I wouldn’t have been so lalala about it since 6 of anything raises my anxiety antenna.  Crazy how much weight the mental shit carries.

Today was a 20-miler but instead of doing one of my two usual routes, I decided to try something different.  The first and last 5.5mi were the same but between that I veered off onto the towpath in Manayunk and planned on going up/down a tough hill I’d heard about, Shawmont St.

I’d been on the towpath before but only on a bike and that was a couple years ago.  I remember it being lovely on the water and lots of other sporty folks around.  Well, there was water.  But it’s pretty industrial and there was nobody around except a couple people walking their dogs so I was actually a little nervous.  Also, I kicked myself for not bringing money or a phone…really not smart.

The run went from my usual asphalt path to concrete sidewalks to boardwalk then soft gravel to about a mile of packed snow and mud, not to mention 9 felled trees in the span of about 1.5miles that I had to climb over, under or around and going both ways so that made 18 trees to deal with – a real obstacle course.

And then that big-ass hill.  Damn that was a good hill. It was a little over a mile and really effective.  Again, not the safest, the sidewalk and bike path were obliterated by snow and I almost considered skipping it since cars were going pretty fast on it, but it looked so inviting in a masochistic way and I’d come that far (that was the whole point of the route was doing that hill) that I just hoped it was not my day to be hit by a car. Happily, it wasn’t.

I had one gel at mile 12 and ran out of water a few miles too early, same as last week, so I’m going to have to use the larger handheld for 20′s from here on in.  Also, my last few miles felt like last week’s; like I was running through sludge – which is somewhat worrisome since my long runs were not that tough last cycle.  Maybe by taking 2 gels next time and bringing more water, it’ll be better.

It might also be due to the fact that I did that 5-mi race the day before last week’s 20 and I did 11 w/6MP yesterday – maybe it’s just normal poopedness.  Still, I cannot wait to say sayonara to 20s!  It’s so much easier to feel good for 17 miles than it is for 20, much less 26.2.

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