Lake Monona 20K

Well, this past Saturday, I completed the Lake Monona 20K! It's a 12.4 mile run around Lake Monona here in Madison. It's really a very scenic route. It follows the bike route, so if you want to bike what I ran, you can! Just follow the spray painted markers on the pavement that say LMR.

A friend of mine and I had been training together, and we agreed to run together. The first half of the run was good - the wind was at our backs, and we were inspired by all the other runners. We were on pace for an 11-minute mile, which is significantly faster than we'd done any of our long runs (which were consistently 11.5 minute miles). And then we got around the northern side of the lake. The wind was now in our faces. My knees started aching. My upper thighs started chafing. My running buddy got her second wind. I slowed us down. But I didn't alter our run-walk pattern of run 2 minutes-walk 1 minute. Toward the end, I was reminding myself that I only needed to run for 2 minutes. No problem! I can totally run for 2 minutes. And I was singing "Just keep swimming" (from Finding Nemo) in my head, substituting the word running for swimming. I crossed the finished line, with tears in my eyes, 2 hours and 20 minutes after I started.

I'm really proud of myself to undertaking this run. I've never run that far, and it took a lot of training to get my body and my mind ready. Another friend of mine has asked if I might be interested in doing the Madison Mini, which is a half marathon (13.1 miles), in August. I'm considering it. . .