11'06". Really? That's over a full minute slower than my slowest training pace to date, but that was my average pace for the long 20-miler. I had a BAD day. From about mile 5 on, I couldn't find a rhythm, my legs were heavy and just wouldn't go for me. My normal level of effort was resulting in slow, painful miles.

This is the first bad day I've had and hopefully will be the last. There have been tough days, sure, but nothing that felt like this - I just couldn't convince my body to go. But, I hope it's out of my system. I'm looking forward to Tuesday to prove to myself that it's out of my system. I tried to figure out what might have caused this, but to no avail. Did I eat wrong? Didn't hydrate? The best reason I could find was that my mind really fought me. The forecast was for hard rain, and I really didn't want to run through it again. Maybe the ol' noggin just got the best of me. It took the great support of my better half to drag me out of the mental basement when it was all said and done.

But, on the bright side. I DID finish. I passed our starting point at mile 16, thought about stopping, but didn't. It was a moral victory to finish this at all, even if those last few miles were extra slow. Definitely not the triumphant finish to the apex of my training I had imagined, but a finish nonetheless. And other that Saturday, the other runs this week were great. I feel fit and am looking forward to a couple taper weeks to get ready for the big 26.2.

Enjoy the videos - they really show the range of emotion/exhaustion of this rollercoaster week.

Almost there,
B