20 Milers: Wake me up when September ends!

September 1st started out with a bang as I woke up at my usual 5am in order to eat and meet up with my marathon training group for our long-run.  Thankfully it was Labor Day weekend and I think everyone at running group was looking forward to having an extra day to recover after the first 20 miler. Mother nature decided that she was ticked with all this "transition to fall" talk and she roared out with 84 degrees and high humidity at the finish.  That pretty much summed up the morning.

The goal for this first 20 miler was to do the distance and not worry about the pace.  We saw a HUGE black snake on the trail around mile 9 and that was not the increase in heart rate I needed at that point in time.

The water in my stomach started to slosh around mile 15 and that led to a pretty miserable last few miles.  When I finished I told the training coaches that for the first time in my life I was happy to have more than one 20 miler on my training program because if Saturday's run was my only one then I was going to be in poor form come marathon time.

I was also pleased that the training coaches knew the run would suck and it would be hot out, so they brought frozen fruit pops for everyone.  Honestly, my little running pack was talking during the run about what we wanted to eat post-run and frozen fruit pops came up more than once.  It was like they read our minds!

The rest of Saturday was a blur as I rotated between napping, eating, reading, napping, eating, etc.  I think I woke up at one point with Jax sitting on my chest trying to get my attention.  It's going to be a tiring September.

Here's my long-run schedule for the rest of the month:

Sunday, September 9th - Parks Half Marathon
Saturday, September 15th - 20 miler #2
Saturday, September 22nd - 18 miles
Saturday, September 29th - 20 miler #3   (22 miles if I'm feeling crazy)



Yeah, I'm doing three separate twenty mile runs in the month of September.  In a nutshell: don't expect much out of me for the rest of the month!

September is going to be the most highly scripted month of my life:

Mondays - Work, Yoga/Pilates with the hubs
Tuesdays - AM Run and work
Wednesdays - Work, Yasso 800s on the track with the hubs
Thursays - AM run, work, and dodgeball (beyond excited for dodgeball season to start)
Fridays - Work, sushi Fridays and early to bed
Saturdays - long run, shower, rest, recovery, and eat everything in the house.
Sundays - AM recovery runs, errands, football, etc.


How is everyone else doing with their running? Any other fall marathoners out there? I know I'm looking forward to the idea of running in cooler temperatures. Bring on the capris and long-sleeve shirts!