OH MY GOD THE LAST WEEK OF TRAINING IS FINALLY HERE!
In less than 1 week I will be a marathoner. It’s really really really going to happen. I can’t decide if I’m excited, scared, thrilled, relieved or what. It’s been a long journey (and even longer if you count the half marathon I trained for in June as a warm-up to actual marathon training) and it’s so insane for me to think that come Sunday evening it will all be over. I’ve devoted a lot of brain power to thinking about this marathon– it’s always on my mind. What will I do with all that extra brain space after the marathon 🙂 ?
This past week of training
The hills o’ San Francisco took more of a toll on my legs than I expected (and the 6 hour flight after a half marathon probably didn’t help) so I was a bit more sore than I expected all week.
Tuesday I ended up going to a strength class at Uplift with one of my favorite instructors Liz. Either her class is insanely hard (actually, it is) or I’ve lost some of my strength because holy crap was I sore afterwards. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been modifying for lower impact variation when necessary during the cardio songs (read more about the class format here, although there’s now 1 less cardio segment than originally). I’m honestly excited to get back to more strength training post marathon. That is once I’m fully recovered…
Besides Tuesday I did my planned workouts for the week. Saturday morning I did the last 10 miles of the marathon course with a crew organized by my coach. I was super happy to not be the only insanely slow runner (YAY BACK OF THE PACK CREW!!!!) and had a small group to stick with during the 10 miler. Even though I generally prefer running on my own for a number of reasons, I liked having a group to keep me motivated even if I was also zoning out to my own music at the same time. A few of them were marathon veterans and offered some tips and words of inspiration.
I’ve now run a fair amount of the marathon course between my previous 3 bridges run and doing the last 10 miles this weekend. On race day it will be nice to know exactly how much longer I have left and what’s ahead of me– I didn’t realize you leave the park and then come back in at the end! During Saturday’s run I spent a lot of time thinking about how the next time I run this route will be the real thing. I resisted the urge to throw my arms up at the finish line in Central Park… but you bet I’ll be waving my arms around, crying and screaming next Sunday.
There were bagels waiting for us at the “finish line”. I’m from New York and I’m Jewish so of course I love bagels after running.
Oh, I also bought new running shoes Friday which is either my best idea ever or worst idea ever, depending on your running thoughts. I know you’re not supposed to do anything new on race day, but I was starting to wonder if my knee pain and foot pain were from my old shoes. I’ve only been wearing my current pair of mizunos for long runs since July, but that’s still a considerable amount of miles in the same pair of shoes. I purchased the exact same style as my old shoes and they felt fine on Saturday, if anything refreshingly new compared to my old pair. Hey, at least I’ll have a relatively new pair of shoes for my next training season.
I can’t stop talking about the marathon and apologize to anyone that has a conversation with me in the next week. I will inevitably bring up the marathon. Sorry. Sort of. This video totally nails it and makes fun of the fact that it’s impossible to not talk about marathon training. The struggle is real.
So there you have it, my last marathon training recap post! Last week, best week, right?
This Week’s Plan
MONDAY: hot yoga
TUESDAY: easy 5 mile run
WEDNESDAY: yoga (will take it very easy)
THURSDAY: rest
FRIDAY: super easy 3 miles run
SATURDAY: rest
SUNDAY: RUN A FUCKING MARATHON!
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