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<\/p>\nReally, week 10 already?\u00a0 Three weeks from today, my race will be run.\u00a0 Will I make it in under 2 hours?\u00a0 Will I beat my last time?\u00a0 Will I even finish?\u00a0 Dramatic chipmunk builds the drama.<\/p>\n
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Damn you Kanye!!!\u00a0 Anyhoo, will I finish?\u00a0 Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’ve got this one.\u00a0 As terrified as I was at the beginning of this because 5-6 miles seemed hard and long after a summer of 5ks, it’s nice to get a good reminder that my body can do just about anything with reasonable training time.\u00a0 I’m going to work to not lose my mileage base this time.\u00a0 It helps that I’m coming out of the race when it is starting to be gorgeous prime outdoor running weather.\u00a0 I’m starting my last hard week of training actually THRILLED and GIDDY at the idea of some nice looooooong slow runs to get used to being on my feet past 2 hours.\u00a0 This is a good sign, as last time at this point, I just really wanted to finish the race and NEVAR RUN AGAIN…<\/p>\n
Will I beat my time (2:16 and some change)?\u00a0 I think it’s almost inevitable.\u00a0 Saturday’s run was just a tinge slower than my last half marathon pace, and the after effects?\u00a0 I feel like I may as well have just gone for a long walk.\u00a0\u00a0 I may not have *quite* hit some of my paces, but with how I’ve been running so far, I think I’d have to have a crazy bad day not to PR.<\/p>\n
Now, beating 2 hours?\u00a0 I’m not sure.\u00a0 I still feel very strong when I run.\u00a0 But there has come a point where my body makes me aware that, no, in fact, I cannot do ANYTHING I ask of it.\u00a0 I can either get frustrated and piss and moan about it, or use those experiences to figure out how to best salvage each run that’s not going 100% perfect and keep those strategies in my back pocket for race day.\u00a0 I’ll choose the latter.\u00a0 My prediction?\u00a0 I’ll need a really good day to break 2 hours.\u00a0 But I’ve had good days!\u00a0 So we shall see.<\/p>\n
So day by day –<\/p>\n
Sunday: We decided to take a nice long walk because it was FREAKING GORGEOUS.\u00a0 We walked about 2.5 miles to lunch and then over 3 meandering back through some parks and nifty neighborhoods.\u00a0 I figured that just under 6 miles was nothing to sniff at so I counted it as one cross training day.<\/p>\n
Monday: 6×800 miles.\u00a0 I went into the gym and started and while it wasn’t as bad as the 1600 sprints, it was no cake walk.\u00a0 Then in the middle of it, I remembered that this week and next week were the ones I added to the program myself (since there was either a 10 week or 16 week program, I picked the 10 weeks of sprints and upped the ante for the last two weeks).\u00a0 No one *told* me to do 6×800.\u00a0 I could *probably* quit after 4 and be ok.\u00a0 I could *probably* just cut the speed a bit on the last few and be ok.\u00a0 But then I realized after last week, I needed to do it just like I set out to do.\u00a0 And thus, I did.<\/p>\n
Tuesday:\u00a0 Yoga’d it up, had a DAY at work, and decided I needed a rest.<\/p>\n
Wednesday:\u00a0 6 mile tempo.\u00a0 I had to slow down in the middle slightly, but I was able to pick it back up at the end and still make my 8:55-ish pace (I think it was 8:57 but whatevs).<\/p>\n
Thursday: Was able to fit in 30 mins DDR, but not circuits.\u00a0 This means I took the entire week off strength training, which is not optimal, but it was a ROUGH week work-wise and very very busy.\u00a0 Sometimes, you take what you can get.<\/p>\n
Friday: Since I was an idiot and stayed up WAY too late partying on a school-night (insert comment on not-a-role-model here), I got through the day, and then our houseguests pampered us with a home cooked dinner and an hour long massage.<\/p>\n
Saturday:\u00a0 If you hadn’t gathered from commentary above, it had been a hell of a week.\u00a0 Crazy stuff at work, stuff to do after, and on top of it all, this morning I woke up and realized that it was that one morning per month where I’m lucky to be able to drag myself off the couch.\u00a0 My legs had also been constantly sore all week.\u00a0 It hadn’t even gotten better with 2 days off.\u00a0 So, I said screw the 15k race plan, and decided instead to do 9 miles easy, no pace requirement.\u00a0 This actually felt WONDERFUL, I got to enjoy the great day, my Zliten biked a bunch of the way with me, and I was ready an hour later to go out and do it again.\u00a0 I did a bunch of yoga after and felt even greater.\u00a0 My legs feel better now than they have all week.\u00a0 Sometimes, you just have to throw the plan out the window.<\/p>\n
Sunday: movies on the couch.\u00a0 Resting up for the week to come.\u00a0 Not lookin’ like a fool with my pants on the ground.<\/p>\n
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This week is my last hard week.\u00a0 Next week, week 11, starts my full two week taper.\u00a0 There is some debate on whether you need that much, but I remembered running 12 miles 6 days before my race, and never quite felt rested, so I’m going to give it a try.\u00a0 At first, I was pretty freaked out about taking it easy for so long, but after having two completely WASTED weeks of training where I was lucky to get a run in at all let alone 3 at pace, and then bouncing back just fine, I think it’ll do me good.<\/p>\n
And it’s not taper yet.\u00a0 This is what’s up this week:<\/p>\n
Monday: 5×1600 sprints @ 8:25 min\/mi pace.\u00a0 This is my own personal gift of hell to myself.\u00a0 At the beginning, when I put together the program, I thought, “I need more work at long distances being fast, so I’ll throw in mile sprints this week and add 1 since it’s the last week.”\u00a0 I think\u00a0 I might could go find a time machine, go back, and kick myself.\u00a0 I would take 12 x 400 over the mile sprints.\u00a0 These have been the toughest on me.\u00a0 But I suppose, it means I need them more than the shorter intervals.<\/p>\n
Tuesday: DDR circuits.\u00a0 Or I might just buck up, head to the gym, and do weights.\u00a0 With my taper I need to taper the weights as well and I want to make sure I get in two good sessions this week.<\/p>\n
Wedensday: 4 mile tempo @ 8:55 pace.\u00a0 Going to attempt to get my hiney up early and do this in the morning outside as I have a social engagement after work.\u00a0 Failing that, another jaunt around the campus at work.<\/p>\n
Thursday: DDR circuits (or something equivalent involving WEIGHTS).<\/p>\n
Friday: rest<\/p>\n
Saturday: 12 mile run @ 9:40 pace.\u00a0 This is another important one.\u00a0 If I can do this one on pace without too much trouble, it will be a good omen for the 1.1 mile longer race.<\/p>\n
Sunday: relaaaaax<\/p>\n
Weight\/Food\/Tracking Update:<\/p>\n
I’ve been giving myself a little leeway here as I’m pretty close to the race day.\u00a0 I’ve been actually pretty good about eating good food in mass quanitites (like a 2 lb bag of baby carrots and 1\/2 lb pea pods… yeah, that was 3 days of afternoon snacks for me), minus yesterday evening’s cracker and cheese fest.\u00a0 I did fall off the tracking this week, so I’ll need to get back to that tomorrow.\u00a0 The scale has been between 156 – 157 (minus one odd day of 152.8 which I don’t believe) but I haven’t weighed since Friday, so again, will start monitoring tomorrow.\u00a0 It’s not been a bad exercise to track during this stage of training, as I actually most running days I’m struggling to eat ENOUGH.<\/p>\n
So there.\u00a0 Wish me luck with this last week and I’ll be sighing with relief when Saturday afternoon rolls around.\u00a0 Still trippin’ out how awesome and loose my legs feel though!<\/p>\n