Silver Strands: Marathon Training 20 mile long run ~ July 28, 2012

One of my LONG long runs fell during the weekend of 2012 EAA Airventure airshow located in Oshkosh, WI that I was attending. Our family has been going starting when the kids were kindergarten-ish and then for about 20-ish years so it is engrained in our psyches that we go. I haven't been to Oshkosh for a few years as the family guys packed up the rental Mobile Man Cave (travel trailer) and headed up for the week. The campground is located on the outskirts of the airshow grounds and is a ton of fun. I decided this year I would go up for a few days. That meant packing all of my running gear.

I planned the 20 miler for Saturday and in that time I would squeeze in a 5k race...the Runway 5k which takes place right on the grounds. I would also be running this solo as Emily did not come and that felt very odd not to have her with me.

I was on my feet ALOT on Thursday and Friday walking back and forth from the campsite to the airshow grounds and I was freaking out that my legs would be whooped. I hoped for the best and set the alarm for 4:30am so I could fuel up and get dressed.

At 5:15am I was on my way. Now, this was going to be challenging because the campground is huge as well as the airshow grounds. Where would I run? I actually had a ton of real estate to work with and all I needed was my wristband so I could enter the grounds. The challenge that time of morning was to find one of the many gates open. I finally found one and I was on my way.

With so many things to see which made for a ton of distractions I clicked off 5 miles before the 5k even started. At 6:30am I made my way to the race start area to meet up with hubby, son and son in law who were also running the race. I ran with son Matt as he is in his HM training. We actually ran slower than hubby Jim and that made him feel good. I had my race bib in my fuel belt so when I arrived at the race I pinned on my bib. When I finished I took it off.

Matt and I finished and just kept running as he needed 4 miles. We said our goodbyes and I was off for another 12 miles. Sounds daunting but I had a great time taking photos and stopping to look at planes (enter Garmin auto-pause LOL). Another upshot of running the airshow grounds was a plethora of porta-potties and water fountains everywhere. What more could you ask for?

I was feeling really good and kept my marathon pacing pretty consistent as much as I could given the circumstances.

It was especially entertaining running through the campground to see the funny campsites that only aviators could think of. I finally finished up my 20 miles and felt awesome and could have run a little longer.

Off to the shower house I go only to get back to the campsite, drop off my things and walk another mile just to get to the airshow grounds. Remember too that if I wanted to get back to the trailer I had to walk that mile back. I have not calculated how miles I walked and ran that weekend but I know it's many.

Now for the photos!