20 Mile Saturday (Swamp Stomp Half Marathon)

With a 20 miler officially in the books, I can honestly say that I'm feeling slightly more confident for Dopey Challenge in January. The snow on Friday evening threw a huge kink in my original plans. I wanted to get up super early, drive downtown to the area where the race was going to take place, and run 7 miles around there. After processing the idea, I decided that probably wasn't a very good one because it would be super dark, freezing temps, and possible ice patches on the road. I did NOT need to slip and break something!

Instead, I woke up early and hopped on the dreaded treadmill at my house to run 7 miles. I was actually thinking of selling that thing but it's come in handy here over the past few weeks so maybe I won't. Hah.

My parents also watched Brayden which was a huge help to me. I was going to have them bring him out there for the finish of the race but decided against it once it snowed!

So, I laid all of my race clothing out the night before. I also wore a different set of clothing for the treadmill run so I wouldn't freeze to death from sweaty clothes once I got to the race start.

This is what I woke up to....26 degrees! Some of the snow from the day before had melted away but a lot still remained which was really neat to see! Snow that lasted two days here? Unheard of!

To date, this is the second longest treadmill run I've ever done. My first was in 2012 when I was training for Goofy Challenge and had to run a 9 miler on the treadmill.

People kept asking me..."how are you going to do this on Saturday morning" and my response was..."well, I just gotta wake up and not think about what I'm doing and just go out and do it"....and that's what I did!

I made it to the race start with six minutes to spare. Thankfully, I'd picked up my race packet the night before! After convincing myself to get out of my warm car, I walked up to the start line and thankfully didn't have much time to wait...we were off and running before I could get too cold.

As we ran through the local neighborhoods, we spotted various snowmen that were still somewhat standing. Seriously y'all....seeing snow that was still standing from the day before was hilarious! That has NEVER happened in my lifetime!

It was a BEAUTIFUL day for a long run! I never had to shed any parts of my clothing at all, including my gloves or ear muffs.

As we ran downtown, we would hit these cold patches where the temps seemed to drop more in that spot than others. It was there where we would see bigger snowmen that weren't quite so melted.

Like this guy for example!

I only experienced mild hamstring discomfort while running and my IT bands didn't bother me too much. I forgot to foam roll as much as I should have this past week so that was my fault. Oh well.

In total, this run took 80 minutes for the 7 miler and 2:34 for the 13.1 miler. Total time of 3:54. Not too bad for my overall long run time as compared to previous years!

After crossing the finish line, I started talking to an old neighbor I grew up with when I heard my name...it was my DAD! He surprised me!!

It was so sweet of him to come out and support me! Love that guy!! :)

After taking a few finish line photos, we decided we were getting too cold and decided to head home. This race didn't do finishers medals, it did finishers jackets...and I registered too late to have one on race day. Whomp whomp. Oh well...hopefully it'll be available in a few weeks!

While my mom was at home watching Brayden, she made us breakfast!!

Yum!

I loved everything about Saturday morning! The race was a great one and I loved having breakfast with my parents after the race!

Another one down for Dopey Challenge! I'm feeling better and better about the race after each training run I complete!