20 miles in, here be dragons

Nice work Steve! 20 miles is

Nice work Steve! 20 miles is a huge mile marker BUT it shouldn't be feared. If you have been fine up untill now with your nutrition, hydration, and recovery you should have nothing to be afraid of. When I started running distances over 12 miles I was worried myself when I would start hitting that "wall" and at the risk of sounding cocky, I've NEVER hit that wall. I did read the advice of many, took my time figureing out what worked for me, made adjustments and never pushed anything too far off plan.

Mentaly, I just kept saying to myself that I've prepared correctly, and with my trial and error i've found the right combo of hydration and nutrition (dinner's night before, breakfest day of, GU's, water, gatorade, and chia - my personal coctail) and I'll do fine. I think if you are there already, you won't have to deal with these demons.

Furthermore, every mile you run and listen to your body and what it needs and doesn't need is another mile you'll know how to prepare for the next. For example, I know almost to the Oz how much wather/Gatoraid I need when it's warm and now when it's 50 and I'm sweating a lot less. Comes with the territory after many miles.

Congrats on the weight loss and milage. Good luck and let us know how it goes! Are you planning for a race soon, marathon or longer?

Skeedaddie,20 isn't the big

Skeedaddie,

20 isn't the big deal for hurting and injuries and all the rest if you're not tying it to a race. If you are enjoying your runs at 15, 14, 12, etc, you'll enjoy 21. Just do like Bruno says and listen to your bod and have FUN!

Honestly I thought 17 was a

Honestly I thought 17 was a much harder distance to conquer than 20. Once I hit 17 a few times 18-22 were pretty quick to make it through. I really have no understanding how how 17 can be soooo much futher than 16 even though 22 is barely more than 18. The math just makes no sense :-D

Dragons be optional.I've

Dragons be optional.

I've read that "most people" can store roughly 2000+ calories of glycogen.

"Most people" also tend to burn around 200 calories per mile.

If one is like "most people" and one also happens to run at such a pace that one is burning purely/primarily glycogen, then one "might" hit a wall at 20 miles (or, 2000 calories).

In reality, most people are not running that fast. Most are also burning fat.

And, if one fuels with carbs along the way, one is not likely to run out of glycogen.

Hence, no wall.

Venture forth and see what happens.

If you've been approaching this milestone prudently, I predict it will pass with little fanfare. (Although, I will cheer for you.)

Ya, Skee, there's no benefit

Ya, Skee, there's no benefit to tyou to push too hard. Easy and calmly does it. On a practice run at a fat burning pace, you should cruise through and feel no particular degradation of mentation or performance. Goos give me the intestinal willies.

You will reach a point where 20's no big deal. You'll see.