It's Time 2 Run

This is the final week of training! Although I’ve stumbled lately, I’ve made it. All the hard work is over. All the months and months of early morning runs, crazy amount of eating, and sleeping are all over. It’s time to have fun and enjoy the experience.

Here are some thoughts and plans for this week. I’ve got two more runs to get in before Saturday. They’re really short 4-6 mile runs just to focus on tempo. Nothing much faster than my goal race pace. I realize there is nothing I can do to improve my fitness level between now and Saturday. I can only hurt myself by pushing too hard. The goal is to stay relaxed and loose.

I’ve got my race plan all figured out including fluids and nutrition along the route. I’m most likely going to burn about 5,000 calories during the race and sweat through about 50 ounces of fluid. The fluid loss is the main concern along with the loss of electrolytes. I’ll be packing 3 servings of Sword sports drink along with some energy gels and chews used during my 20 miler a few weeks ago.

Lastly, the weather forecast is showing rain for Saturday. This poses some serious problems for what I’m going to wear. I absolutely hate running in the rain! It was like this last year though. Hopefully the precipitation holds off to later in the race.

I’m so excited! I’m getting closer and closer!
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I apologize for the delay in the update. It’s been a busy and slightly depressing two weeks. Let’s just say that I’m ready to get this marathon done. This training has been emotionally draining. I’ve been high and low week to week for months now.

Here’s my update.

The hamstring issue is all good. I panicked because of my past problems with hamstring issues and because I was worried about getting enough training done before the marathon. After a few modifications to my training program, adding rest mostly, I was able to get my 20 mile run done that was included in my training calendar. This was my longest run to date. It was also a time that I could actually plan things to carry for the race. I wanted to actually see how much fluids and nutrition I was going to need to carry. I was spot on as far as the fluids but carried too many race gels with me. I’ll take that though. I’d rather have too much nutrition than too little. The only minor injury to report is a major blister on my left pinky toe. I went into the long run with a blister but hoped not to aggravate it further. But I did and it opened up in my sock during the run. It took off my toenail and everything. OUCH! It’s healing and should be fine for the race in ten days.

Yes, ten days! I’m almost there. Just a few small training runs and it’ll be time to go.

Yeah… So the goal was to stay injury free. I’ve been successful towards that goal until now. I’ve often had problems with my right leg in general but specifically with my hamstring. From high school and into college, I’ve missed competitions due to severe hamstring strains including partial tears of the muscle. Needless to say, this isn’t a good time for this injury with 3 weeks till marathon time. But, before I go into a panic, let me explain how my week went.

This week started out with another long 18 mile run. The run was going well till I ran out of fluids. I did make it to a little over 17 miles though. Considering how fast I ran the Papa John’s 10 miler the day before, I’ll take that. I was only supposed to do 8 that day and did a 10 mile race. I did more mileage that weekend than I was supposed to do. I definitely feel stronger. The middle of the week was full of short runs just to recover from the high mileage of the previous weekend. I also did not want to push too hard because I had a difficult race coming up Saturday in the Run the Bluegrass Half Marathon.

Speaking of the Run the Bluegrass Half, I did quite well! I finished in the top 8 percent and beat last years previous time by almost 7 minutes. Impressive… most impressive! Afterwards, I felt like I could’ve gone another 3 miles at that pace. I was very happy with the results of that race. It’s by far the most difficult course because of the hills. But it’s a beautiful course. My race preparation went well as I got up extra early to get to the site. I had all my gear ready the night before. This was a great marker to gauge my fitness level. Again.. I’m getting stronger.

Now, the bad news. I went for a short recovery run the next morning and couldn’t get to three miles. I felt a sharp nagging pain in my hamstring at about the 1.5 mile mark. I thought I could run it out thinking it was a cramp of some sort but it got worse the more I ran. After another mile, I called it quits and went back to the car. This week was supposed to be the important peak week for me where I put in the last large volume of miles before I begin to rest up for the race. I’m not sure how to rework my training schedule to allow me to rest and get the mileage I need. It’s not a good time for injury right now. I’m even thinking of pulling out of the race.