Vacation 20 Miler

Summer vacation 2009 is history. As is typical, I spent the time either drinking more expensive beer than usual, consuming gut-busting amounts of seafood, assuring my children that despite what shark week says, the surf is safe... or running.

The day after arriving in Ocean City, I went for what was supposed to be my first 20 miler of the marathon season (which has 3 total). This was basically the course I had in mind. While the course was 19.25, I knew some places I could pick up the difference. In the end, though, I cut it at 19.6 because I was whooped. Other notes:

1) If you wish to copy this course, be forewarned you're not supposed to run on the Route 90 bridge. There is a decent sized lane, but you're not supposed to do it. Also, if a car were to swerve, your only move is to vault over the railing into the bay.
2) Fortunately, there's not a ton of traffic when I went over it at 7:30 AM.
3) If you want to get off Route 90 onto Ocean Parkway, keep in mind, this isn't an intersection. It's sneaking through woods and over guardrails.
4) Ocean Parkway is easily the prettiest road I've run in Ocean City
5) Ocean Gateway is easily the ugliest highway I've run in Ocean City
6) This course has plenty of mini-marts if you need to refill your water bottle and I hit most of them.
7) Two hours into the run, I accidentally ripped out my insulin pump. Thankfully, I was actually trending a bit low for most of the run, and though the heat, humidity and miles did a ton of damage, my blood sugars stayed low.

After the 20, the rest of the vacation was a cut-back week, which meant lots of recovery runs on the boardwalk. Good times all around. Now I'm back and have another 50 mile week planned this week.