Running With Your Heart

It’s nearly here. Three days. My big marathon that I’ve talked about for the last few months. The one that I thought about while I was training for a dreamy 5k PR. The one that took months to decide on the the time of year to run it in. Finally, I can hardly wait. Here’s how the last couple weeks of my training went and three reasons why I’m so excited…

I left off telling you how awesome my friends are and I had a brief scare with knee pain. I was slacking on the stretching, strength work, and cross-training. Dare I say it, I got LAZY- while marathon training! It’s a thing. The next week I went to yoga twice, worked with a theraband 5 out of 7 days, and foam rolled a little bit every day. That week we had a great strength workout following the Hanson’s Marathon Method, 2 x 3 miles. It was a cooler day in the 60s and our second set of 3 miles was a good 15 seconds faster than the first.

The strength workout that week was HILARIOUS. I mapped our 10 mile tempo run ahead of time. I didn’t think we missed the our street to turn but at one point I knew we went too far so we better turn up to head back. The good news is I averaged 8:40 for the tempo run (goal pace 8:46!) but the bad news is missing the street added an extra 3 miles. We had a longggg cool down, needless to say. It ended up being a 15 mile day. HA HA. Then we got ice cream afterwards! Note: the street we were looking for had a different name on the side of the street closer to the road we were on, so we would have never found the street name we were looking for… my bad!

That weekend I set out to do 18 miles! And I did it! I felt great during it. My dad came with me on the bike and he went up a couple streets extra browsing garage sales so he definitely got more miles in than me! It was about 70 degrees F when we started but the humidity was high around 70%. After mile four I had water every two miles. We even bought more water at a gas station. That was my first and only week I made it to 50 miles.

The following week, week 15 of training, was busy. I didn’t go to any yoga classes, or get a tempo run in, and Saturday’s long run was 16 miles. (I had hoped to reach 20 and still being three weeks out it should’ve been fine.) But I was OK with it and didn’t feel l bad for missing out on miles. It still was a nice run with my friend Amanda biking, in the rain. And we got brunch together afterwards.

Week 16 I felt back on track, about 49 miles for the week, I went to two yoga classes, a few days with a theraband, and foam rolled a teeny bit every morning and evening. I was dreading the tempo run that week. I wasn’t feeling it. But Jess came with me and it was bearable. We averaged 8:52. I’ll take it since it’s much better than I thought it was going to go. The temp was in the low 80s but the second half of the run’s splits were faster than the first. I did accidentally and completely unintentionally miscount so it was a 9-mile tempo instead of 10. Oh well.

Amanda came back with me on Saturday for another long-ish run, 12 miles. And guess what?! It rained!! At least it was cooler out. I also practiced taking water in every three miles. Afterwards we ate a picnic lunch and went kayaking! What a great day!

Even my sister came for a few bike rides with me!

I also made a few runner/nutritious meals myself over the last few weeks. I made meatballs like I made before, but with beef instead of bison. You know it just didn’t turn out the same. It wasn’t until I was serving myself that I realized I never cooked the noodles and at that point dishes were already done and I was out of energy. I also tried something new and made a butternut squash and apple soup. Wasn’t quite as delicious as I expected but the leftovers are frozen so eventually I’ll eat more of it.

Duh, I had to add cheese and I didn’t have any Parmesan left

Last week was the the last of the real workouts. Donna and I wrapped up the last of the strength workouts with dinner and ice cream!

And I actually was looking forward to my last 10-mile tempo run with Jess. It was in the low 80s but I averaged 8:44 pace. I couldn’t believe it. By the weekend my left Achilles’ tendon acted up again so I took immediate rest days.

Instead of going to hot yoga on Monday, Clare came over for some “hot” yoga in the back porch since it was still 95 degrees outside.

Still working on my core strength! Maybe by the end of summer I’ll get my legs up.

Shout out to Clare because I certainly cannot reach my knee to opposite elbow!

And now for why I’m so excited!

1. It’s my runcation of the year. I haven’t yet thought about any other vacations and races to do, too, this year. I have nothing planned like any of my Mackinac Island runcations. Let me get this trip done!
2. That being said, it will still be a vacation and I’ll get to be a tourist and relax. I can put my feet up and not think about fitting in my next run. I can find the best ice cream shop in town- even if means trying them all. And I can take cheesy sunset and lighthouse pictures and snaps of delicious food- whatever!
   (I am partly worried about being nauseous with an upset stomach when I finish and not being able to eat all the food, because that sometimes happens after races, not usually after long runs. See this link, I think all but #3 may apply to me. TIPS?!)
3. I put in a lot of work. We all did. We sacrificed Tigers’ games on workout nights and Friday evening brewery visits. So I also can hardly wait to see all the work pay off and just be done. I’m ready for some days off.

I wonder what the weather will be like for my race….