So the marathon is rapidly approaching--just 1 week and 3 days to go. The thing is---I am soooo nervous.
Never before have I been this nervous leading up to race day but, I guess never before have I set such high expectations for myself. My goal this year is to do the race in 3:50--that would be a 12 minute PR from last year, which is HUGE. Really, I'd like to do it in 3:48, but I think that may be a little unrealistic. A 3:50 marathon would be an average 8:46 pace and a 3:48 would be an 8:41. *sigh*
So, let's talk about training, my race history, and whether I can do this. At the very beginning of marathon training I did a half marathon in San Francisco in 1:50. I was, by no means rested for this race--the Saturday before I did my first triathlon. I followed up the tri with a 4 mile run and bootcamp the following day, speedwork that Tuesday, bootcamp that Wednesday + a run, an easy run Thursday and hills that Friday. I then hopped on a plane to San Fran and ran the race that Sunday. All that to say, I'm thinking maybe I could have had a better time than 1:50--1:48 perhaps. Plug that 1:48 into running times race calculator
http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=6765
and it says I can do the marathon in 3:49. I'm going to hang my hat on that. I also was a very dedicated trainee this season. While I did not make all the Tuesday practices, I made up the speedwork the days that I missed (except when I was suffering from post-race soreness) and did all of the tempo runs and hill workouts. I also did all of my long runs just the way Spencer prescribed. There were about 3 long runs where I did between 6-9 miles at race pace (8:35-8:45) and was able to finish them strong. After both my 20 and 21 miler I felt just fine, like I could have kept going for sure. I went to bootcamp every week and even cross trained with swimming once a week. So, I should be prepared right?
Well, for some reason, despite spending that whole last paragraph convincing myself and hopefully you that I can do this, I'm still very nervous. What if I go out to fast? What if I go out too slow and can't make up the time? What if there's a terrible rainstorm, or it's super hot out that day? So many variables. So much to be nervous about.
So, instead of being nervous, I'm going to focus on what I can do to make this goal work. Starting today, I'm getting 8 hours of sleep, every single night, if not more, until race day. Also, starting tomorrow (after my office pizza party), I'm going to eat very clean--no cake, french fries, etc. All the bad stuff that makes me feel bloated and crappy is out. For the taper, I'm going to follow Spencer's rules to the letter. No extra running. No extra swimming. No bootcamp. Just rest and easy runs. Oh, and no alcohol. It's going to be a boring week.
So, in case you're wondering how my training has been going, since really that is the purpose of this blog, here's a bit of an update. This week actually started pretty poorly. Saturday and Sunday passed by and I didn't get my 16 miler in. On Sunday night I was seriously freaking out about it but still couldn't motivate myself to do it. Finally, on Monday AFTER A FULL DAY OF WORK, I hit the streets and did it. What a relief! I managed to get all 16 miles at a very respectable 9:30 pace with no water and just one gu. Tuesday, I decided to chill...after all I didn't get finished with my long run until 9pm. On Wednesday, I had another struggle of a day. Instead of getting up and doing my 6 miler in the morning, I woke up a tad hungover and flaked on my running buddy. I then, instead of going to run immediately after work, decided it would be a better idea to go get a burrito from Dos Toros (which btw, is DELICIOUS). Finally, I got home around 8:30pm and watched Biggest Loser, waiting for my burrito to digest. By 11pm, I felt good to run and then ran a cool 6 miles at what my garmin calls an 8:41 average pace but 8:13 average moving pace. Normally, I wouldn't bother including this "average moving pace," but it is important in this case because I had to stop at A LOT of corners waiting for lights. I couldnt run in the park because it was so late and so had to deal with other pedestrians and traffic---LAME. I managed to keep my heart rate at an average 164 for that run, which I think is pretty good. Finally, today I did an easy 4 mile recover run on the treadmill during lunch. I didn't want to get stuck doing another run after work b/c I have terrier in the morning and want to be rested.
So, what's on tap for the next week of tapering. Tomorrow we have a fartlek. We throw some speed into what would otherwise be an easiest run. Runners world is always a good resource for learning about this stuff:
http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-238-263--12081-0,00.html
On Sunday, I'm going to be down in DC with my friend Consuelo who is doing her first marathon. YAY!!! I'm going to do the last 10 miles with her, and this will be my final long run before the marathon. Then next week, I have 3 super easy runs. One on Tuesday with Spencer (as a side note, as much as i whine about getting up early to go to speedwork, I'm going to seriously miss Friday practices with Spencer. I've actually grown to like the hills and tempo workouts. So freaking odd right!) and then a 30 min run Wed and 20 min run Thursday. I don't even know if I know how to run for just 20 minutes!
Well, that's of my chatting for now. Hopefully I can put all of this nervous energy into something productive!
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