low battery warning…the final 20 miler

Wow, it is a little hard to believe today is the final day of 2014.  It felt like this year has flown by!  Things were a little quiet on the blog as I enjoyed the holidays, plus I spent some time moving over to self hosted WordPress!  Be sure to stop by and check out my new home.  I’m still having some issues with how my site is displaying on mobile devices that I need to try and figure out though!

This past weekend was my final big weekend of training for the 2015 Goofy Challenge.  I had my second and final 20 mile run on Saturday, followed by a 90 min run on Sunday.  I was seriously lacking the motivation to start my 20 miler, but I finally got out the door around 10 am.  There had been a light snowfall late on December 25th…just enough to make the footing on the pathway a little bit tough.

As I started out on my run my legs felt tired.  All of those little stabilizer muscles in my ankles and knees felt sore from running on snow.  I was having a really tough time feeling this run and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to complete 20 miles today.  I even texted my coach that I didn’t believe I could do it.

Just after I hit send on the text I gave my head a shake.  Maybe today wasn’t going to be my best day, but I needed to execute.  After all, if I’m having an off day on the day of the marathon it isn’t like I can ask the race organizers if I can race a different day.  I figured I just needed to give my legs more time to warm up.  I kept on running and listening to my tunes and slowly but surely things started to improve.

I was going to break my run up into two out and backs, and I wanted my first out and back to be the longest.  I continued on along the Bow River, crossing over the Edmonton Trail bridge, then on to the Eau Claire YMCA where I could stop for the bathrooms.  I love some of the artwork around Edmonton Trail/East Village.

On my way back I was feeling much better about my run and I was now mentally committed to making 20 miles happen.  All of a sudden my watch beeped at me and I got a low battery warning!

I knew I had about 55 minutes to make it back home and I just hoped my Garmin would last long enough that I could make it back and give it a quick charge.  I picked up the pace and ran faster than I probably would have otherwise, plus I missed several run/walk alerts because my watch won’t vibrate when the battery is that low.

My husband had gifted me a set of Yurbuds leap wireless headphones for Christmas that I was testing out for the first time today.  Despite leaving the house with a full charge (and an advertised battery life of up to 6 hours) about 2 hours in I started getting a low battery warning from them too.  All my technology was dying on me!

Luckily my watch lasted and I let it charge while I refilled my Camelbak and changed out of my sweaty vest and lux side zip top.  It was a little tough getting out there after a 20 minute or so break and my legs felt a bit creaky.  Luckily I didn’t have that much longer to run and the final few miles flew by.

As soon as I got home I showered and changed and put some compression sleeves on.  Neil served me up a bowl of hot soup made with homemade duck stock and leftover turkey.  It was delicious!

Sunday’s 90 min run was a fun one…in that it was incredibly cold with arctic wind gusts.  Luckily I had company from my friend Tara and that helped…but it was really unpleasant out there.  I think that run built a lot of mental strength.  

And with that I am now tapering!!

Any other Disney Marathon runners out there?  Are you feeling ready for the race?