Sometimes you have to dig a little deeper than other times to find the positive. Seems like the last couple of weeks that has been where I am. Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not complaining or claiming any injustice in my life, it's just been busy. I've got plenty of positives in my life and certainly happy with the cards I've been dealt, but the running has been a bit stale. Mainly because I have felt so tired and constantly rushed all the time.
As expected, football with the 3 boys has taken some time, but traveling out of town for 4 out of 5 games in the past couple of weeks proved to be taxing. You can only get home at Midnight or 1:00 a.m. in the morning so many times before it starts to take it's toll. Add to the the final few weeks of "tax season" and I am flat wore out! My mileage is falling a bit short of what I had projected for training, but not enough that I'm really concerned. It's definitely ahead of where I was last year at this time so that's a positive for sure.
Last Saturday I told Gina that I was going to run to the mall for a training run. The mall in Odessa. About 35-36 miles was my estimation. She just looked and me and told me I was crazy. Well, Sunday morning I got up, a bit later than planned albeit, loaded my Camelback Octane XCT with G2, gels and protein bars and headed out the door. A little over 5 1/2 hours later I was walking back in the front door, done. The last 10 miles were pretty much a struggle, but in looking back I attribute it to the temps getting up pretty high. If I had got my lazy butt up early and left the house when it was still dark, I would have got back in a couple hours earlier I think I would have been fine.
This past Saturday I volunteered myself to pace a friend in a local marathon. He was wanting to run a 3:30, about 8:00 minute mile pace so I figured I could help him and get in a nice run as well. As luck would have it, the weather was great. My stomach, not so much. I battled some GI issues between miles 7-14 and had to take a couple of pitstops, both times ended up running some 6:20-6:30 pace miles to catch back up with him. Finally by mile 17 I had caught back up with him and we settled in for the remainder of the marathon. Just under 27 miles for the run @ 7:49 average pace and when it was all said and done I was feeling very fresh. The next morning I got in an easy 15 miler and if I would have had more time I would have considered running a full 26.2 just because. I was feeling quite fine. Mentally this was nice and to think that I put up a 36 miler the weekend before made me think that things were looking good.
Overall for the 8 day stretch from Sunday through Sunday, I ran just over 103 miles with two days completely off and a 4 mile day. That means I averaged just under 20 miles a day on the remaining 5 days. While that doesn't really mean much as it is the whole 8 days (and really the entire training cycle) that matters, I feel like I'm gaining some momentum heading into my last 9 weeks of training. Seven of those should be some fairly high mileage (70, 80, 80, 90, 90 90, 90) and the last two will be my taper where I hope to get the legs rested up.
So for now, I'm putting the shovel away as I have dug up a positive note for the training. An to add to it, I've had a few more contributions come in to the foundation so that has been nice to see that number creep up a little as well. Maybe I can finish the last nine weeks hard in both departments.
Thanks and take care!
