New breakthrough: 6 miles without ITB pain
Yesterday am I got up early (5:30 am!!) to volunteer for the towpath marathon. I figured the least I could do was go out and cheer on some peeps who were doing it since I couldn’t run it.
We had a BLAST! Our aid station was about 1.5 miles from Boston store so we all met in the parking lot and walked on the towpath to get to our spot. There were tables, water, heed, and pretty much nothing else. It was hillarious because we were contemplating how to mix the heed - which seriously was NOT going well. The guys decided to pour it back and forth into the buckets and then Frank went looking for a stick in the woods to use (we didn’t use it - Janet did a sprint back to Boston store on a bike to get items we needed).
The real fun started when the runners started coming through. Frank was CRACKING ME UP!!! He kept telling the runners these detailed descriptions of heed: ‘this is Heed, it’s a sports drink, but it’s not gatorade…’ and going on and on about it. Like they care!! I told him to just tell them it was gatorade!!! hahahaaa. OMG and Athena was telling people they were tigers, grrrr! Then I had an idea to tell people they were hot and to some of the (hotter) guys I would say ‘let’s go hott stuff!!’ ahahahaaa. Just the silly banter back and forth was way entertaining. It made up for the fact that we were seriously in the middle of nowhere on the towpath and we were freezing to death!
Now the breakthrough. I ran 4 miles last week, so I figured I would try 6 yesterday. I would run whatever pace was comfortable - this is typically around 8:30 lately. Last week I got pain at 2.9 miles, but I’ve been working on my stride and form. I notice that if I shorten and quicken my stride it seems to help, so that’s what I did.
8:29 - no pain
8:29 - no pain
8:09 - no pain
8:04 - still no pain!
8:03 - no pain still!!!
8:19 - got nervous - but there wasn’t ANY pain at all!!!!!!!!
I am SO excited about this. Part of this was mental, too, since I knew I was getting a massage afterwords so I didn’t care if I did experience pain - since it would get massaged and loosened up. (I have a new hookup for massages - since Maryellen is in massage school!!!)
I’m not sure what to do for Columbus. I’m thinking walk / run? I don’t want to run the whole thing for fear that I will overdo it. At the same time I want it to be a good day of training - so maybe run the first 8 and then speed walk the last 5? Advice from my professional running friends? 
29* year old Akron native. Recently completed my MBA with a concentration in Sustainability. Passionate about innovative renewable energy technology and endurance sports.