22-mile run! (well almost...)

Well, I had a 22-mile training run scheduled on Saturday...
I had mild sense of dread prior to the run. I wasn't feeling particularly fresh or rested on Friday. I then ate dinner much later than I would have liked on Friday night and felt sluggish Saturday morning. Based on how my previous long runs had gone, I knew I might start feeling serious fatigue as early as 17 miles...
I ran this training run with the Lake Merritt Joggers and Striders marathon training group. Karen leads this group and plans and coordinates our runs - she's a superstar. She has a broken toe and can't run, but she still shows up every Saturday morning with maps and encouragement. As it turns out, of the 10-20 people that generally show up for these runs there are only 3 of us are training for the full 26.2 mile marathon. For all 3 of us The San Francisco Marathon will be our first. The rest are smarter and wiser and are training for the much easier Half Marathon. My full marathon training partners are Mike, who is my age and has previously ridden in the ALC bicycle ride from SF to LA. The other is Adrien (sp?), who is almost 20 years younger than us and previously lived and trained in Mexico City.
We started earlier (7:30) than our usual 9:00 starting time since our run would last approximately 4 hours and it can get quite warm in the afternoons in the East Bay hills. This Saturday's run was at Briones Regional Park which is about 5 miles North of Orinda. We started with an out-and-back for the first 8 miles. We started with the Half Marathoners for a change, since their scheduled run for the day would be that 8 mile out-and-back (and then they're done!) Mike must have had Wheaties for breakfast since he started out at a fairly fast clip the first few miles with Adrien right behind him. His pace didn't seem sustainable for 22 miles so I held back a little. Even though I held back slightly, the 3 of us finished both legs of the first 8 miles at a faster pace than the half marathoners - and we still had 14 miles to go!
Back at our starting point, I topped off my water bottle with more Gatorade and off we went for the balance of out run. For this run I experimented with energy gels - one every hour. Last weekend I ate very little during our 20 mile run and really ran out of gas at around 17 miles. For the remaining 14 miles we ran around the Briones reservoir. It was a beautiful run with great views. At about the 13 mile mark we started a steady gradual climb for most of the next mile. I was feeling pretty good by then so I pushed the pace up the hill and continued at a good pace for the next 3 or 4 miles. At about the 18 mile mark, my left calf started hurting quite a bit. It didn't feel like a strain - more just protesting the overuse. I took it easy for the last mile or so since by then both calfs really hurt. As far as general fatigue, I felt fine and could have continued for a few miles more. The energy gel every hour made a world of difference - I didn't feel the dramatic fatigue I felt with my previous week's training run.
When I got home I checked the mileage of this run and discovered it wasn't quite 22 miles. I calculate it to be over 20 miles, but not by much - so I'm calling it 20.5. I was really excited to have completed this run. This is the longest run I've done in my entire life. When I trained for track and cross-country in college, our longest runs were 18-20 miles at most and that was over 20 years ago! This was a great workout and a big confidence booster looking forward to the San Francisco Marathon. This run wasn't as long as the 26.2 mile Marathon, but was on dirt trails and with more hills. On the other hand I'll be running the Marathon at a faster pace.
I learned a few things on this run: My stomach has no problems with Gatorade or energy gels, the energy gels will make a huge difference with my level of fatigue late in the Marathon, and the Marathon is going to be hard on my legs and my calves may hurt like hell for the last 6 to 8 miles. My plan is to bring some Tylenol with me during the Marathon and take it with my last energy gel at hour 3. Hopefully that will keep the pain at a reasonable level and I'll be able to finish without it affecting my pace.
Less than 3 weeks to go!