Holy Shit, this is real.

Well, this week was fairly uneventful running wise. It's taper time. I was expecting to feel a little stir crazy, but actually this week felt really good. Compared to running 20 miles last week running only 10 for the long run felt really really good and I was able to keep my pace/mile a full minute faster than my 20 mile run average. I've mainly been focusing on how happy I am to be running less, feeling a little less tired and having a little more time to relax (although i've still been spending way too much time in the lab!), then it hit me: "oh my god, in a few weeks I will be running a marathon!". This is real. Duh right? At this point I actually am looking forward to running the marathon!

The weather has been SO MUCH nicer. Cooler temperatures, less humidity. I love fall. It is the best running weather. He's a shot of the path that has become one of my favorites.

Here's the weekly recap:

Sunday- 10.01 miles

Saturday - 6.25 miles

Friday - off

Thursday - 7.01 miles

Wednesday - weights

Tuesday 5.26 miles. No speedwork this week, I couldn't get out of work to make it to the track. It's probably best, my legs were feeling like lead weights still from sunday's 20 miles.

Monday - off

Weekly Total: 28.53 miles

Taper Time!

Whew! Last week was rough. It was my highest weekly mileage, and Thursday afternoon I came down with a cold. Ugh. I had planned on breaking up my planned 10 miler into 6 in the morning and 4 in the evening. I managed to get the 6 in the morning, but by thursday afternoon there was no way I was putting in 4 more. I went straight to bed, slept for 12 hours and actually felt better when I woke up, so Friday evening I put in 6 more miles. Sunday's 20 miles didn't go quite as easily as the first 20 miler, but I made it through taking a couple of walk breaks.

Now, it's taper time. I'm a little torn. On the one hand i'm excited to be running less milage, to hopefully be less tired, and to have a little more time to do other things. On the other hand, I know i'm going to start to feel restless and crazy.

I have myself a new pair of shoes and a new race day shirt! Don't worry, I wore them both on Sunday's 20 miler with no problems. I got the shirt off the clearance rack for $10 and was wondering why it was so cheap since there were others that I thought were just like it on the regular rack for $40. Turns out, there is a blue dot on the front of the shirt which i'm fairly sure is supposed to be in the middle, but it's way off to one side. Oh well. It's a race, not a beauty pageant and the shirt is super comfy :-)

My task for the next week: put together a playlist for the race.

It's strange, I have always been very against running races with music, but so many people have recommended it for this race in particular (due to lack of crowd support), and its not against the race rules.... so I figure I'll give it a go.

Here's the weekly update:

Sunday - 20.01 miles

Saturday - off

Friday - 6.11 miles

Thursday - 6.15 miles

Wednesday - weights

Tuesday - 3.05 miles in the morning

6 x 800 with 400 rests for a total of 4.77 in the afternoon

(total of 7.82 for the day)

Monday - off

Weekly total : 40.09 miles

One week until taper

I've been a bad blogger lately. I got through my first committee meeting at the new school! Yay! It feels good to have that off my plate, but i've been working like a mad women, weekends, nights, etc, to try to get out a publication by November. Oh yea, and i've been training for the marathon! It's been tiring. I have to say i'm feeling better about the training than I was a few months ago when all of these super long runs were looming over my head. It's crazy to think that my "short" runs during the week have become the distance that my "long" runs were at the beginning of training. The truth is that they really do feel "short" at this point! I have been noticing that my body seems to bounce back a little quicker than it did after that first 15 miler, or even the first 20 miler. This is the last week of building milage (and the highest week of milage) before taper. I'm looking forward to taper, but i'm also a little leery of how strange i'm going to feel not running much after all of this running!

Here's my missing weekly recaps for the past few weeks:

Sunday: 18.31 miles

Saturday 6.01 mile tempo run

Friday: off

Thursday: 8.14 miles

Wednesday Weights

Tuesday: 5.0 miles total. Speedwork 400/400/800/800/400/400/800/800 (200 recovery after 400s, 400 recovery after 800s)

Monday: 14.21 miles

Weekly total: 51.67 miles

Sunday: In Niagara Falls for labor day :-)

Saturday: off vacationing

Friday 4.01 miles

Thursday 8.10 miles

Wednesday: weights

Tuesday 4.0 miles

Monday: off

Weekly Total: 16.11 miles

Sunday: 3.16 miles. It felt worse than running the 20!

Saturday: 20.0 miles

Friday: off

Thursday 7.0 miles

Wednesday off

Tuesday 6.24 miles

Monday off

Weekly Total 36.40 miles