What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger
Chris Jennings/Herald Democrat

My training plan has me down to do a six-mile run Saturday. The weeks before all of my long runs increased in mileage up to the 12 miles I did last weekend. So I’m treating this week as a rest week.

My runs are a little shorter than prescribed and I may take a day or two off in general. This seems like a good idea to me since I really jumped in feet first with some pretty big mileage for someone with little running experience.

Since this week was going to be a rest week, I decided that my last long run before my self prescribed rest would be a little test.

I woke up early Sunday morning and headed to Cross Timbers for my 12-mile run. I figured the distance was long enough to give me a good idea about how I was progressing and since Cross Timbers was the site of the planned marathon, it would also give me a good idea on what I was in store for.

As I’ve said before, I’ve spent a lot of time on the trails out there but none of it has been running until recently and I don’t ever recall running 12 miles before. I’m convinced if I had done the run on the road or an easier trail it would have been no big deal.

Not this time though. The trail is just plain hard — there is no other word to describe it. In the 12 miles that I ran, there was 3,200 feet of elevation change. To put that in perspective, the trail around Waterloo Lake in Denison has about 1,300 feet of elevation change in the same distance.

At 9 a.m. I hit the trail at Juniper Point on Lake Texoma. As I passed boy scouts who were hiking out from a weekend of camping, I made a point to smile and make sure they could see I was having fun.

Most of them looked like they were suffering. I thought that if maybe they could see how much fun I was having running they would realize that they were just walking and that had to be easier than running.

I felt good at the start and took it real easy the whole day, making sure I had enough fuel in me so I wouldn’t hit the wall and get myself in trouble out there by myself.

Over the course of the day I had a Buzz gel, a Gu gel, a Ciff bar, Power Gel, Sport jelly beans, and another Buzz gel. I had pasta for dinner and eggs for breakfast. I also made a point to hydrate well on Saturday in preparation for a run that I was a little nervous about.

For those that are unfamiliar with the gels and beans, basically they consist of carbohydrate-based calories that are easily absorbed by your body when they are eaten in gel form. Some of them have caffeine to give you a little kick. The beans are pretty much the same but contain extra electrolytes to help you replenish what you lose while sweating.

I was able to run all the uphills until the last mile and even then I was able to run them but was pretty tired. I did make a point to run the last hill, which is BIG and LONG.

I finished the run in right at three-and-a-half hours, which was a little slower than I would have liked but I’ll take it.

After all I’m only two months into training and have almost four months to go before the marathon. What worried more was the condition my legs were in after the run. For the rest of the day on Sunday I was sore. Monday I was sore and it still hurt to walk to the kitchen.

I tried to run Tuesday and got just under two miles before I decided to call it quits before I hurt myself even worse.
Now for the good news. By Wednesday my legs felt normal and I was able to take the dog for a three-mile run and felt pretty good doing it.

It seems to me that the recovery time was not that bad. I was starting to fear the worst. I made sure to eat food that would help my body recover from the hard workout and still stretched every day.

All in all it wasn’t that bad. I got the hardest and longest run in I’ve ever done. It hurt but it didn’t kill me, and if it doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger, or so I’ve heard.