Saturday’s 16 miles didn’t exactly go as planned. Originally, I was going to start at 6am and get this thing done.

Then, I decided 7 was early enough since it’s not too hot these days. My friend texted at 6:50 to say she just got up, could we make it 7:15? Long story short, we finally got started at 7:45am.

My stomach felt weird and crampy before we even started. I decided to go for it anyway and hope it went away.

We started running at around a 9:30 pace and kept that up until disaster hit. Not really disaster but…after running up the Mt. Vernon Trail and around Roosevelt Island twice — on to Georgetown and the C&O Canal trail, my body went kaput.

My stomach cramps got horrible and and I could barely run. In fact, it hurt to laugh! We had gone around 9 miles at this time. We walked about half a mile, then I tried running for a bit. Another mile down — and I had to stop again.

I was so irritated because I didn’t want to stop, I wanted to get my 16 miles in. My friend and I decided to just walk it out. We had gone so far one way that 16 miles was inevitable even if we were walking the rest of it. After I found a toilet, I felt a little better but still weak.

I jogged another mile and then we finished it out with a fast walk. I was so mad we didn’t do 16 miles because god knows it takes mental preperation to plan a long run. I did NOT want to do that again this weekend.

My friend didn’t care but I was still mad. So I headed home planning to finish up 5 more miles to make an actual 16 miles running. I had a glass of Nuun, half a peanut butter sandwich and some water before heading to the gym with my Self Magazine.

I was over running outside and wanting to just pound this out mindlessly on the treadmill with my mag. Unfortunately, two people were already on the two treadmills and weren’t leaving anytime soon. I hopped on the elliptical machine to go and wait for someone to get off the treadmill. No go.

I ended up doing a hard and fast 45 minutes on the elliptical. I figured I could count that as equivalent to 5 miles of running, right? I mean, it’s about running on tired legs and all that so I feel okay calling it 16 miles of running, especially since I walked 5 miles on top of that.

Afterwards, I was sure fuel correctly this week. I had another glass of Nuun and made an egg, cheese, avocado and tomato sandwich with a side of chocolate milk. I continued drinking lots of water and had yet another glass of Nuun later in the day. It was sufficient to make me feel decent the rest of the day.

I can’t stress the amazing power of proper refueling! So two weeks from this weekend I’ll be up for my first 18 miler, then 20. It seems impossible each time but…I’ll do it.

Despite wanting to be more casual about training, I can’t help but be a little OCD about getting in these long runs. I don’t want to come up the marathon feeling like I’m going to fail getting through it. So….here I am 🙂