NYC Marathon Training Week 12 – If I had a perfect day, I would start my run this way!

Reflecting back on last week makes me feel confident enough that I’m ready for NYC. Or at least I think I am, and besides the point, I pretty much have to be. With the conclusion of Sunday, the infamous and craze cray taper madness begins. I do a 2 week taper where I start decreasing mileage and increasing my crazies until race day. Although to be fair, with all my races, and hours at work, my mileage has been as unpredictable as a geyser. I don’t know why, I’m thinking of geysers. I guess I’m missing Iceland and adventure.

Monday – Tufts 10K 6.2 Miles
With a day of rest, I plunged into the Tufts 10K. Full recap is up so I’ll leave the details there. 6:51 Pace.

Tuesday – HAPPY 10/15!! 
No running, besides all the post office trips I made for work (long story, don’t ask, but it included some killer sprinting)

Wednesday – 20 Miles
My bosses told us to go catch up on some sleep so of course I went to go catch up on that 20 miler I missed over the weekend. Sure, I had a 50K on Saturday but what’s a marathon training without self-destruction? Don’t worry, I paid the price.

I ran 17 out of the 20 miles outside before it got a little too bright, sunny and hot outside. I wrapped up three more in the darkness of my basement watching Hart of Dixie (don’t judge).Mentally, I did not want to be running since I don’t think I’ve ever done a 20 miler on a week day before. I tried to hold it together but inside I was whining and whining. Barely held my 8:25/8:30 pace on a flat path.

Thursday – 6.3 Miles
7:24 Pace on my home treadmill as I continued on my quest to watch as many Tween drama shows as possible!

Friday – 5 Miles
I usually like to have a rest day before a race but my legs felt laggy from my speedwork & Wednesday long run. I thought it would be a good idea to go for a little recovery run. However, I had no time until the evening which was probably a little too late with a race at 8AM.

Saturday – 17 Miles
It was supposed to be a 50K but I was mentally a bigger wrecking ball than Miley Cyrus’ new song. In the first 10K loop I was annoyed with all the fast runners breathing down my neck on single track part of the trail. On the second loop I was just annoyed at my legs for not moving me. It was that on my second loop that I decided I’ll do one more and call it a day. No need to wreck my body to exhaustion when I still have NY coming up in 2 weeks. Average pace was 11:10 or so but for how easy the course was, I should have been running much faster and less clumsy. I walked an additional 1.6 miles or so to finish 30K with my roommate who not only ran her first trail race ever but her first half marathon! We then celebrated some good times with Pizza! Although I DNFed, I’ll probably have a write up for the event anyways.

I mean come on pizza or run 13 more crappy slow miles? Clearly I picked a winner!

Sunday – 22.2 Miles

I woke up Sunday and it’s like Saturday never even happened. I felt great! I felt springy and the day was gorgeous. Sure I should have gotten a haircut or done some cleaning or something adult like, but it was a gorgeous day and I decided to strap on my shoes and see how far my legs would take me. Quite far. I did some 4 mile repeats on my 4 mile loop that I love.

I held about 8:05 for 20 miles before I started to cool down. I didn’t want to race my race two weeks early so I was happy that 8:05 felt not easy, but comfortable enough.

Total Miles – 76.7!

Total Feeling – Started high, middle low, ended high! I ran over 70 miles in just 6 runs so I’m feeling good (for now). Knock on wood!