25 miler = FAIL

On my planned 25 miler today I was listening to the Extra Mile Experiment. Chris Russell (I think) was talking about his half marathon simulation, and concluded that it was a failure. So was my 25 miler.

It actually was pretty warm compared to the past few weeks, about 25 when I started and 35 by the time I finished. However the wind was still whipping. And nearly 2 feet of snow does not dissapear over night. The roads were still totally covered, especially the side streets. So my option was to slip and slide on the side streets, or brave the traffic on the main road where there was less snow, but I had to run out in the traffic lane because the snow banks take up the entire shoulder. I did a combination of both. I'd run on the snowy side streets until the little muscles in my legs were screaming from trying to stabilize me. Then I'd run on the main road until I couldn't take being sprayed with slush, honked at, and nearly run over every 10 seconds.

Because of the snow, and because I'm bored to death of it, I didn't do my normal long run route. I did smaller loops near my house, which gave me an easy out. At 21 miles I was just done, mentally and physically. I'm really dissapointed with myself because I wanted to have 25 miler in bank to draw on for Antarctica, which I know will be more demanding than anything I've done before. Can I really do this??