Sunday, September 23rd, 14 Miles

I decided to change my long endurance day to Sunday. On Monday I was walking the first 5 miles with Terri and then I would complete the rest of the mileage jogging/walking. Since I want to jog/walk the entire marathon, I thought it would be helpful to train the same way.  So… Today I jogged/walked 14 miles on the Centennial Trail. I completed a portion of the Centennial Trail I had never been on before. In fact, it had been months since I had been on any part of the Centennial Trail. Mark dropped me off at the Armar Road trailhead. I jogged to the Bryant Trailhead, about 8 miles, turned around and jogged back through the city of Arlington. Mark picked me up again after I completed 14 miles. This was accomplished in 3 hours and 36 minutes. At the end, I was very tired, but felt very satisfied with my jogging!

Something I found out today was my race belt didn’t work as well as I had envisioned it would.  It works fine for the shorter walks and jogs I do during the week, but for long jog/walks I’m going to have to come up with something different.  Before, when I walked, I used a waist pack/fanny pack. I fondly referred to it as my exercise purse. It was large enough to carry a water bottle, snacks, phone, etc. It also bounced a lot when I jogged. I bought a running belt from Ifitness that worked well for jogging. It did work nicely, until today. This running belt isn’t large enough to carry everything I need, while doing an endurance jog. The hydration bottle only holds 4 oz. I just went to the website and discovered they sell larger bottles. Anyway, I purchased the Amphipod pouches and the Amphipod hydration bottles to add to the running belt. While jogging, my running belt now slips down to my hips and would’ve slipped off if I hadn’t hiked it up numerous times. I’m going to have to come up with either a new belt or some other way to carry fluids.

Reading the books, Marathoning for Mortals and Marathon: You Can Do It!, have changed the way I feel about jogging. It doesn’t have to be continuous and it’s okay to intersperse it with walking. This paradigm shift in my thoughts of jogging, has given me the courage to push myself beyond the comfortable limits I had placed upon myself.

Today would’ve been my younger brother’s 49th birthday. He died of a heart attack 2 years ago. In Curt’s and my dad’s memory is a big reason I do marathons. Both of them died of heart attacks. My dad at age 55 and my brother at age 47. I have another brother, who is still living, who had a heart attack at 50. My walking and jogging is an attempt to keep heart disease at bay. I want to live to 100 years old and do marathons into my 90’s.