Notes
This was a tough one! But ... I guess the good news is that there were several good reasons for this to be so tough.
First, I had a massage from Jayne on Friday. She dug into my legs good -- which i needed, but my legs still feel pretty fatigued from that. Second, i woke up at 4am with a migraine, and had to take my Imitrex. I only took 1/3 of a pill, but even that amount makes me very tired and fatigued for 4-5 hours, so i was definitely still feeling that through most of the run. Then last ... this run puts me at 47ish miles for the week, so my legs were already pretty tired. I just dont have the strength in my legs yet. I have felt just fine in prior runs up to about 15 miles, but I think i need to continue strength training and base building to enable these longer long runs to feel a bit better. But that's why i'm doing runs of this length at this point in my training -- to build up my base.
I am proud of myself for sticking it out and finishing the 18. I really wanted to quit at about 12. I didnt quite get the full "3 miles fast finish", but i did get close-ish to GRP for the last mile (my GRP is 9:44).