Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Marathon Training Wk 11 - Distraction, Heartburn, and Taper

As you may recall, last week was my BIG run of 22 miles (wahoo!). So, this week was the beginning of "taper" or a winding down period before the big day. My schedule seems to have a slightly longer taper built in than most (?) but timing wise I'm so thankful. This weekend was INSANELY busy and there was no chance of fitting in 20+ miles. So I'm going with it. 

Planned/Completed

Monday - 3 miles/ 0.  I obviously didn't get up at 5 (because I apparently an incapable of waking up with my alarm on Mondays?) so I planned to run at lunch or in the evening. But then we got "the call" and I got all distracted by adoption business. :)

Tuesday - fun workout/ nada. I have yet to actually do a "fun workout" on my schedule. :( I spent a lot of my "spare time" Tuesday sorting out more adoption stuff. Priorities people.

Wednesday - Rest or XT/7.6 miles (quasi-tempo). In an effort to not completely blow my week schedule, I moved Thursday's run up, sort of. I did 5 miles on my lunch break (1 WU, then 4 tempo-ish).  I was shooting for a tempo pace of 9:30, which I discovered is really hard with the hills, uneven sidewalks and traffic lights downtown.  I averaged more like 9:50 for 3 miles, but the last mile (mostly downhill) was around 9:10. : / It was certainly an effort, so I guess that counts as tempo in my book.

Wednesday evening I did a 2.6 mile race with my kids. It was a fundraising run put on by the high school to raise money for a school in Haiti. It was a lot of fun and I'm really impressed with the kids!  S ran ahead with her cross country friends and I kept G, H and A with me. Mark and Al cheered us on. Abi kept begging to run ahead, so after a mile I let him. H joined him and off they went. I thought for sure they would sprint and tire (and walk) but they didn't! Well,they sprinted, but they could keep it up! G struggled a bit more, but I stayed with her and she ran the whole thing. I was so proud of all of them, especially since we did not really train.

Thursday - 7 miles (mid 5 tempo) / 3.1 miles. Pretty much moved Monday's run here and Thurs to Weds.

Friday - Rest or XT / 13.1 miles.  I knew the weekend was going to be crazy, so I moved Saturday's planned 16 miler to Friday night. I am not a nighttime runner, usually, even for short ones. This was my first 6+mile run at night. I hated it. It started off okay, but I started checking my watch before mile 4 - not a good sign. :( Just wanted to be done. Tired from a looooong busy week and heartburn and stomach problems like crazy! And I misjudged my location vs darkness and had to run quite a ways back home in the very dark. :( It was really creepy and frankly not a very smart/safe choice. I didn't actually have any problems, but I was so creeped out that it just ruined everything. I tried to finish the last few miles in my neighborhood, but mentally I was DONE. It was better than skipping it completely, but I felt really disappointed, given how well last week's run went.

Saturday - 16 miles (10 in strong finish) / nada, rest. See Friday.

Sunday - Rest/ Art Prize walking!  :)

Total Miles: 26 miles /23.8 miles
(P.S. I know it's taper, but that seems like not very many miles! I'm a little nervous about how training went in September and I need to really get on top of this upcoming race mentally!)

4 comments:

  1. Way to be flexible with your busy week! If you want to get in a tempo tonight with me - I'll be at the beer run :) I need to do 5 miles, 3 at tempo pace. No clue how to do that since I don't have a clue what the distance/route will be tonight. Guess "flexible" will be the word of the day :)

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    1. I wish I could! I committed to staying home this week to try and find normalcy. :) Hoping to jump onto the beer run bandwagon next year though! Have a good run!!!

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  2. Ahhhhh, taper. Enjoy it! My brother has been posting about Art Prize on his Facebook and I saw a few previous year's pieces when I was visiting him a few weekends ago. I bet you would get a kick out of a video he just posted of his little daughter "talking" about the guy hanging off the tightwire piece. His name is Todd Chance, he's in media in Grand Rapids so his page is public. You should check out his little girl's *opinion* about that art piece, it's a hoot!

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