Last Sunday, Jesse and I headed out for my longest run on the road since October’s Healdsburg Half Marathon. Despite logging a 13-mile trail race on May 18, I knew running on the road would be a completely different animal due to the pavement pounding and intense muscle compression. After making a decision on Vineman (more to come on that in a later post), I knew I would need to start ramping up my running mileage both during the week and increasingly longer long runs. After a quick check at a Hal Higdon marathon training plan, I knew this week I’d have to run 14 miles, my farthest distance on the road since training for TSFM last summer.

To get on track for marathon training mileage, I’ve been following Jesse’s good example of nightly stretching and foam rolling, and a two-hour deep tissue massage by Nathan Freebody helped reset my muscles. I knew going into the run that it wouldn’t be easy, but I tried to prepare my body the best I could.

Despite the urge to run on the trail in Marin, we decided to run on familiar turf – from our place in Russian Hill down Marina Green to Chrissy Field, cutting up into the very hilly Presidio (to avoid some of the traffic for the bridge), down the Coastal Trail to Baker Beach, through Seacliff, and turning around at Land’s End. It ended up being a beautiful day, in the low 70s with very powerful sun (the UV index was 9). I felt strong for most of the run, even though my pace slowed and my muscles started aching for the last few miles. We ended up just shy of 14 miles to stop at Marina Safeway (also known as Dateway) on our cooldown walk to pick up some Chia seed grape flavored kombucha, coconut water, and thrist-quenching pineapple.

Although my legs feel a little tight and sore, I’m not feeling any debilitating pain jumping into marathon training. I hope marathon training continues to be as successful as this long, slow run.