Long ass walk

I’ve been lagging way behind on this years Portland Marathon training, and with only 4 weeks till the actual race, I had no choice but to cram in a 20 miler this past Saturday. Needless to say, my lungs and legs aren’t to happy right now. This walk was extremely difficult, and at times… painful. I simply haven’t done enough long training walks and I think the jump from a 13 miles to 20 miles in just a 3 weeks period (without anything in between), was a bit much.

As I was approaching the Golden Gate bridge from Crissy field, I could see them setting up a huge camp and staging area for 60 mile Avon Breast Cancer walk . I remember thinking.. …..these people are walking 3 times farther than I am! (Somehow I found it hard to complain after that)

The whole thing took me almost 7 hours to complete , but that included several stretch breaks and a stop at the Sports Basement Super Store in the Presidio to buy a couple gels ( I lost the ones I had brought along). It was also very warm in San Francisco that day, which I wasn’t expecting. When I started the walk at 7:45am it was only 62 degrees , by the time I finished …it was 89 !
Somewhere around mile 15 , I was so hot, I ended up tossing my jacket.

Next weekend I’ll finish up this session with a 10 miler and then a well deserved 2 weeks of short easy walks.