Ran 16 miles and had a horrible experience after - why did this happen?

Will do!

Jacksmama - Just spotted you here. How are you? Please post a bulletin in the tea room, where we've been worrying about you imagining you stoned out of your head on percocet.

Well, notyummy, if it does, make sure you take a picture and post it!

Runforlove, you may end up being one of those people who's just built for running. I hope so!! I'm glad to hear you biked a lot before, I didn't realize that (if you said so in your OP I apologize for missing it), and so you may have the equivalent of a few years of running behind you. (You sound quite intimidating as a matter of fact - you go, girl!)
The advice I posted came from my own horrible experience and from having treated more patients with similar experiences than I would like, but of course it doesn't apply to every one. I do see you can't back off now, and good luck, I'm sure you'll do great - you've raised so much money, that's awesome!! But if I can just make another suggestion, if you're really hooked on marathon training, try not to do more than one every few years, stick to 1/2M's in between to rest your body.
Good luck and I will be cheering for you!!

Thanks jacksmama...will have a go; altho suspect some vaguely sports related injury involing a tie or banister may ensue

that should be "bend" your body into a wide L-shape... can't type, it's too early for me...

It can be done - it took up running in September, and ran 20 km at Christmas. But just because it can be done doesn't mean it should be . Kind of like drinking a bottle champagne all by oneself... it can be done... LOL!

notyummy, there are a couple of ways to stretch the ITB. It's pretty difficult in general because to stretch a muscle you have to bend it over a joint, and the joint in question is the hip, but sideways over the hip, if you see what I mean?
I'll try to describe the stretches, if I completely fail to make myself understood, let me know, and I'll get DH to take some pictures and post them on my profile.

Okay, one way is to stand sideways on the stairs (preferably the bottom stair!), and let one leg (the "down" leg) hang down over the stair edge. It would be good to hang on to the banister unless you have superior balance. ;) The side you're stretching is the top leg which is the one you're standing on. Now let the "down" leg stretch down, and bend sideways towards the down leg, so that you feel a big stretch in the hip and down the outside of the thigh on the "up" leg. You may have to bend the knee a little (the IT band crosses the knee joint and attaches in front of the head of the fibula). Really allow the down leg to reach down, while keeping your upper body as straight as possible whil bending. You're trying to bed your body into a wide L-shape sideways at the hip.

Another way to stretch the IT band is to lie on your back and bring one leg up, knee straight. Take a belt or nick an ugly tie from DH and loop it under the bottom of your foot and use the ends to pull you leg up. At first this resembles a hamstring stretch. But when you've pulled the leg up as far as you need to get a comfortable stretch, then allow the leg to fall sideways over the middle of your body. So if you're starting with the right leg, bring the right leg up and then allow it to drop over your middle toward the left. The trick here is NOT to let your body twist over with your leg. Try very hard to keep your low back flat on the floor, and only let your leg and hip go over. If someone can help you with this, ask them to push down on your right hipbone while you let your right leg flop over the middle, and push down on the outside of your right knee - so they're holding your right hip down on the floor, and pushing your right knee across your body so the whole length of your IT band is being stretched between their hands.

Let me know if this makes sense and if not I'll post some pictures.

I have no advice, sorry, I only run short distances (5-10km).

Am amazed and impressed that op only took up running in October and is now managing 16 miles!

I have been running for years and I don't think I could do that distance.

oooh, interesting!

How do you stretch the ITB?

Running isn't unhealthy. Marathon running may be. But that isn't what most people do and no-one does it all the time.

I don't think I agree that running is really unhealthy and messes up all your joints. There was a longitudinal study done several years ago comparing the incidence of arthritis in the knee joints of "chronic runners" and couch potatoes, and there was found to be no significant difference between the two groups. I'll see if I can dig it up and post a link.

But it is a very strenuous sport, and marathon training needs to be approached with some distance running behind you. Unless you think the rules don't apply to you, like I did , which means eventually they'll catch it with you!

I also forgot to add that if you're going to persist with marathon training (and I really hope you shelve it for a few years), you must cross-train to avoid injury and strengthen the areas that suffer abuse from running, such as the hips, and really stretch the hip flexors. Lots of women, regardless of whether they are in shape or not, have weak hip abductors, which are the gluteus medius muscles on the sides of the hips. If they're weak, they allow your hips to "slosh" back and forth which places a LOT of strain on the iliotibial band, another sideways stabilizer. IT band friction syndrome has killed many a running career. You must stretch the IT band and the hip flexors, and strengthen the gluteus medius muscles, in addition to cross-training. Great cross-training for running is power yoga (also called Ashtanga or flow yoga), Pilates, biking (within limits, because it also puts stress on the ITB), and water aerobics (the strenuous kind, because it gives yo cardio and resistance without stressing the joints).

Please cut back on your marathon plans so you don't become another injured or former runner after a very short painful running career. If you work up mileage slowly, you could have years of running and many healthy marathons ahead of you.

My dh goes running, and he always take a banana and 2 packs of power gel,in addition to water and sports drinks. He "eats" every 30-40 minutes while he is on the go, so to speak

Running is really unhealthy

fucks up your joints long-term

And if it does this with a bit of mismanagement I'd say avoid.

JacksmamasLittleBundleOfLOve - I agree with all your post. That's what I meant when I said she was increasing her milage too quickly.

OP - you post on Runners World, don't you?

Hi - I've only skimmed over all these posts so I apologize in advance (before I get flamed) if I'm repeating anything that anyone has said. I did almost the same thing you did - started running and almost immediately started training for a marathon.

Honestly, I can't recommend it. It's a terrible thing to do to your body. You need at least a year, preferably two years, of solid distance running behind you before you can tolerate the rigours of marathon training. Not only do your muscles have to get strong enough - and I mean get strong enough over time to handle the repeated stress of running that sort of distance (which is different from knocking off one long run every once in a while) but your joints and skeleton also have to build up strength. I'm a health care professional which, in theory, means that I should know what I'm talking about, but like a lot of people who have theoretical knowledge, I didn't think the rules applied to me, and really paid for it in the end.

I had fairly frequent near-hypoglycemic episodes after long runs such as you describe. You burnt up all the sugar in your muscles and then when the carbo burn continued, forced your liver to start converting stored glycogen into glucose so that you could keep running. This happens when a relatively new runner runs excessive distances - it takes time to train your body to be able to utilize fat for energy, and if you only started running last October, your body won't have perfected that skill yet.
You're also putting yourself at risk of iron-deficiency anaemia. Long-distance runners are prone to blood-loss from two sources: one is the gut, when blood is diverted from the gastrointestinal tract to the large muscles of the legs and core. The gut develops pinpoint areas of necrosis (tissue death) from lack of blood supply, which is then exacerbated by tiny amounts of bleeding from the necrotic sites. Over time these tiny amounts of lost blood add up. The other cause of blood loss is what's called "foot strike haemolysis", when the red blood corpuscles whithin the arterioles of the feet actually burst from repeated foot strikes in distance running. Sadly, I speak from experience - I persisted with marathon training despite feeling crappy and ended up anaemic.

I really, really recommend that you shelve your marathon plans for a year or two, and just build up to being able to run fast and comfortable 10K's this year and graduate to half-marathons next year. Again, I say this from experience - I did run my marathon, and did very well, and did myself such injury during the run that I've not run a step since. I ran the Vancouver Marathon in May 2004, so my running career has been over longer than it ever existed.

An ideal protein breakfast before a 10K run would be toast and peanut butter, and cottage cheese with sliced almonds and fruit on it. You should also learn to eat while you're running, raisins or dried apricots or PowerBars (even though they taste like crap). Dried cranberries are good, too. If you plan to persist with long runs it would be good to invest in a Camelbak hydration system, you can carry up to two liters of fluid without really feeling it.

Good luck!!

I'm not sure, about how much to drink. Probably depends on your size etc. If I see her I will ask.

Re the drinking, I know a couple of very serious runners, one olympic, who were really helpful when I trained for a half marathon. They both maintained that if you have taken on fluid before a run, you can do a very long run without drinking too much more unless it is hot. They also said don't touch Lucozade! Good luck with it, you are doing really well. (One of these runners used to run marathon distance every day!)

Is this the sort of distance you usually run?

Never run that far

But when I do my long runs (half that distance ) I go out first thing in the morning, I eat a banana or a digestive biscuit before I start. Nothing more.