twenty miles!

so wow. saturday was brutal but awesome. i jumped in on the marathon course run (thank you, Jim Adams & Falls Road Running!), and did the twenty mile course loop. holy (*!#&%^!!!!! i did it in about 11min. mile pace, for a grand total of 3:45. that'll put me on track for a ~4:45 marathon. woo! i can't believe i did it. unfortunately, even though there were about 200+ runners, i still ended up between clusters of runners and consequently did the last 15 miles on my own. dammit. i don't know how i keep doing that. i will say, however, that that is making me mentally tougher. hella tough. i made it. we started at patterson park at the butt crack o' dawn and the course went as follows:

linden (i think) to madison to washington to st. lo to harford to hillen to 33rd to guilford to 28th to st. paul/light to montgomery to hanover to fort to ft. mchenry to towson to marriot to hull to fort to lawrence (i missed woodall) to key to light to pratt to president to lancaster to caroline to aliceanna to boston to linden

http://www.thebaltimoremarathon.com/exec/baltimore/pdf/2005map.pdf

that's the new course loop, btw. i'm bitter that they took out the hampden loop. why the hell can't they finish falls road in time? instead, we're going through druid hill park like normal and then cutting over to st. paul and heading down. they've put in a loop inside ft. mchenry, which is kind of cool. i like running next to water. except for when there are cutting winds off the harbor, it's pretty relaxing. so anyway, i guess i'm pretty psyched, especially now that i know that i can do 20 miles without falling to pieces. and, val probably won't be able to come run with me, but i don't think i need that anymore. i did the 20 miles by myself on saturday, so since there will already be people around me, i know that i don't need somebody with me specifically. YAY!!! what makes this even better is that there will be people out there to support me. mom and dad are coming down. they're kind of like my pit crew, i think. and then kristie and steve said they'd be somewhere to cheer me on. and kate said that she'll walk toby to a part of the course, and they'd cheer for me. and, best of all, chris is going to be at the finish line. yay! :)