Day 121: A week for the strong

I ran TWENTY MILES. But first, the news:

Friday was, fortunately, a rest day. My brother and I spent it in Brooklyn with my grandmother, and we had a nice time. At dinner with my parents, I ate pasta, pasta, and more pasta, and... "are you eating those garlic knots?" Later in the evening, my Phoenix aunt and uncle turned up at the house.

This morning, I set out on the epic final long-long-long training run. Out of the development, along Woodbury Road, and then up the LIE service road to Round Swamp Road... then down to Bethpage State Park, up to Jericho Turnpike, back to the LIE service road, and back to Syosset, with a few detours and extra blocks during the way. It actually worked out to be 20 miles and a quarter: WOW. Sunny, cloudless day, temperature rising from about 50 at the start to close to 70... I removed my hat and gloves as I went along. Didn't drink all the fluid I had with me or eat all the gels, which I guess is a good sign.

After about an hour I realized I needed to pee, which hasn't happened on the long runs before due to careful pre-running preparations. I frowned as I considered my options, but I realized that this was supposed to be a training run, which meant training for all aspects of the marathon: the running and the ancillary stuff. So I ducked into the woods and peed, and resumed running. No problem... in fact, I felt a lot better. So now, if I need to stop and pee during the marathon, I should know what to do. Mostly, pee. Also, as I ran along, I became less shy about being just a tad gassy from all the pasta. Hey... YOU run 20 miles and see what happens!

Traffic on Round Swamp Road was heavier than I'd figured on, and many of the drivers seemed to react with astonishment on seeing me in the road, running against traffic. The Minuteman Bikeway this ain't. I saw only a few other runners and bikers... all of whom insisted on waving at me, California-style. Uh, shared community? (Freaks! ... Oh, all right... just kidding.)

Toward the end of the run, as with my near-20-miler two weeks ago, my legs became very leaden, and it was difficult to finish. But I did. I even walked for about 10 minutes afterward, before sitting down, to make sure I would be OK. That was hard. My knees on both sides were very sore and tender; for the rest of the day, I'll have trouble walking, and I'm not looking forward to all the time I'll be spending cooped up in the car this afternoon: first to Brooklyn, to see everyone all together at my grandma's before my brother hits JFK to head home to LA, and then back to Cambridge. Oy.

Listening to the news during the drive to New York, one of the anchors remarked that it has truly been "a week for the strong." It's more true than she realized -- the game of life is tough... they say that no one gets out alive. We'll see.