Best 20 miler

I had an awesome 20 miler yesterday. Katie and I met at 7am. It was raining, but cooler, so I was happy. The plan was to run 20@ 8:30, but I was secretly hoping to go under 8:24, which was what I did during my last 20 miler. As I mentioned before, Katie is super fast, so I had no idea how things would go. Would we start out too fast and I would ....die at the end. I have always been the "fastest" in the group, trying to accomodate others, so I was excited to see how it feels to run with someone faster than me. I was prepared for some suffering and pushing through.

We started out @ 8:24 on the slight uphill of the Minuteman bike path. The path is actually flat, but I know it so well that I am aware and can feel all the slight uphills and downhills. It was so great to chat our way through the miles. It reminded me of my Boston training runs with the Sue(s) and how much fun we had running in all kinds of weather. Aside from a 2 mile stretch with some groin pain (and lots of thoughts about stress fracture) that mysteriously went away after I switched to the other side of the path, I felt awesome. I even took a chocolate GU to see if my stomach could handle it, and all was well. With 1.5 miles to go, we both picked up the pace. It did not really feel like we were going faster (I was still feeling great), but we were. We stopped at 20 miles, for an average of 8:18, with the last 1.5 miles @ 7:28, ran progressively faster so that the last 200m were at 6:43 (thank you Garmin!). Wow! I have never finished a long run feeling so good, and able to keep going. I could have easily finished a marathon at that pace today.

The run ended up being a 21 miler for me, since I ran .5 miles to meet Katie, and than .5 miles home (the last .5 miles were more of a walk/run; once I stop running, it's really hard for me to start running again). My groin felt tight yesterday, but I hope it is going to be fine. I did my standard test for a stress fracture - jumping on one leg - and past it. My legs were a bit stiff yesterday, but is better today, so I am hoping no damage has been done. I am at the point in my training where I am going faster, way faster than what my training plan tells me, and I need to be careful about that so that I don't get injured. Getting faster is such an addiction...