One week and counting

Next Saturday at about this time I will be icing my legs and gorging myself on something ridiculously fattening while hopefully rethinking my amazing time....(that's me and my hopeful thinking). :) I've finally fully recovered from the flu, running last week was a bit challenging. Today I ran my last 10 before the marathon and I felt great. So I'm positive and looking forward to it. Even if I don't qualify (which I'm still planning on doing everything in my power to qualify)I've decided to not let it devastate me. I'm going into this still hoping I can, but realizing that it's an extremely hard goal and even as much and as hard as I've trained, a 3:40 may not be possible this time around. So here's to that, and this next week of easy runs, till Sat. :)

Yuck

Can I say Yuck? That's the word of the weekend. Yuck. Before bed I laid out my running clothes for my last Sat. morning 12 mile run. I was feeling especially tired but contributed it to the hike the boys and I just went on earlier that evening and my "running diet" that leaves me craving my chocolate and white bread. But unfortunately it was none of those, instead it was the evil stomach flu. From about 2am till 6am I ran from my bed, to the toilet for a nice throw up session, to bed and repeat. Not fun. I missed my run and spent most of Sat. feeling incredibly nauseous and weak. The best was when it was finally bed time and I went to sleep feeling exhausted, nauseous, and weak when I heard my little 4 year old crying. Crying because he had what I did, only he didn't make it to the bathroom, but did manage to cover a very large area of bedding with puke. Yuck. Theres nothing like cleaning up puke when you're on the verge of doing it yourselg. So, I got to clean, and then stay by his side as he repeated my ordeal. Then today I was luck enough to wake up feeling better, but weak and sleep deprived. But then today my husband got it too...Yuck. So I'm 2 weeks out and I'm just thankful that I got it now instead of on my race weekend. But on the bright side, I'm feeling lots better. It's only a 24 hr. bug, so by tomorrow my fam should be puke free. Oh and did I mention that on Sunday the day after the marathon me and my hubby are going to Hawaii? :) Now that is not Yuck.

Less than 3 weeks and counting

I can't believe it's almost here. Ready or not, St. George here I come. Today my nice mommy biked my 20mile run with me. Anyway you look at it 20 miles stinks. But there was some good news. First the weather was great, I think it started out around 50degrees and ended around 65 or so. It's beautiful to look around and take in the mountains with the sun peeking over them. Now only at certain points of my run, where my endorphins were buzzing, could I actually appreciate this. Other times I was grumbling about marathon running. What crazy person enjoys this? Oh yeah, that would be me ...at times. But I didn't have to take my ibuprofen until mile 17 which is a huge improvement from past runs. So the positives: no injuries, no knee pain, beautiful weather, great company. The negative: my time. Boston is seeming more and more out of reach. I just don't see how I can maintain an 8:20min/mile for 26 miles straight. So far I've had 2 20 mile runs and both have not even been close to averaging that. Bad news...very bad news. Of course IF and only IF I have an amazing running day where everything falls perfectly into place then maybe I can qualify. Otherwise it looks like I'll just try and if I don't I'm going to have to wait about 6 years till I'm 35 and the qualifying time goes up.

Another week down

I've slacked on my journaling, but life has been crazy. So a quick recap- last week a ran a 16 mile hill run and it was pretty good. Honestly I can't even remember much about it besides the fact that 16 miles sucks just as much as 20, especially when I'm doing it alone. This past week was my down mileage week, thank goodness.7 miles Monday, 6 miles Wed. and 6 today. Very easy and very nice. I think it's been so helpful in preventing injury. My knee has been great this week. We'll see how Saturdays 20 mile goes.
Mainly my thoughts this past week have been on acquiring some form of personal protection. Monday night I had a scarey runner experience. I missed my morning run and couldn't get myself out till around 8pm. I had to run 7 so the last few miles were ran in darkness. I'm smart enough to never do this alone, but that night happened to be the exception. I live in a very safe area (or so you think) and always run in pretty populated, lit areas. Anyways as I was running a car passed me very slowly. This is common, but I get the creepy feelings sometimes and this one triggered it in full force. It then stops and turns down a street a few ahead of me and just sits there waiting so that I would have had to run right in front of it. I had a very bad feeling but rationalized that they were probably just lost. To play it safe I crossed the street anyways and ran on the other side past them. No sooner had I done this then the crazy car comes out and drives slowly by me again. Now I began to panick imagining the worst scenarios, so again I crossed to the opposite side. Thankfully some people turned the street and I could see them walking so I ran to be by them and scarey crazy guy took off. So not quite sure what that was all about, but I'm glad I didn't have to find out. I love running, but that was one of the things that I don't love about it. So next thing on my list for alone runs is pocket sized mace.

Marathon Pace team

I have a little hope that maybe I can make this goal, maybe. I signed up with the Cliff Bar pace team for the 3:40 marathon time. They say that as long as you stay with them then they will cross the line within that time. So at least now I don't have to only rely on my Garmin, I'll have actual people to run with and motivate me. That was huge news for me. Also I went to a meditation class last night and met a girl there who ran both SLC and St. George. She missed Boston by 30 sec. last year but she did say that her time from SLC improved by 20 min. for St. George. I haven't run St. George since 2005, so I'm hoping maybe the same will hold true for me. Hoping. I just finished my 7 mile tempo run. 1 mile warm up at a 9min pace, 5 miles at 7:40 and then 1 mile cool down. I'm tired but am feeling pretty good. Now I just have to spend some time with the ice and my knee.

First 20 mile run

Yesterday I did it, the dreaded 20. I've been building to get there. 17, 18, and now 20 miles and it hurt. I decided to drive to flatness so that my 20 miles could be hill free, and I wore my new super cute running skirt that I LOVE...so worth the $50. :) My mom was nice enough to ride a bike next to me for those 3 long hours of nonstop running. It was so nice of her to be there for company and also for protection from the random scary men that walk the Parkway. Not that my mom is much for protection, I mean we're both about 5'1, and so not scary, but at least I feel better on secluded river parkways, to have someone with me. To my surprise those 20 miles actually flew by and I felt really strong and really good. My end time was 3:06 which was not what I wanted, especially because there really were no hills to tire me out. To make my 3:40 marathon goal I am going to have to do it MUCH FASTER. :(
I hate the discouragement of not doing what I want to do. But I keep telling myself it was just a training run. Then I give myself all my justifications as to why my time isn't where I want it to be. 1. It was just a training run. 2. There was no competitiveness, no one to beat. 3. I was talking a ton with my mom which makes me slower. 4.My knee was hurting.
My knee...that's a whole different story that I'm hoping magically goes away on it's own. Otherwise I am going to have to take another trip to Costco and buy the Bulk bottle of Ibuprofen again. Blah. But anyways at least I'm doing it. Only 6 more weeks till it's here.

18 miles

Well I'm getting there. Friday I ran my 18 and did much better than my previous 17. I still feel like training alone is not fun, not fun at all, but at least I'm getting there and sticking to my schedule. There was a random guy who was running ahead of me and I thought I'd challenge myself and try and pass him. For about a mile he remained ahead of me, but I kept closing in on the distance until finally I passed him. That was a needed boost for the run that morning. I have always had that streak of competitiveness in me, well more than a steak. I am competitive and I like to compete. And I really like to win. :) The only bad part of my run was when my knee pain started. It lasted a few miles, but I ran through it and it went away. That of course scared me because I was injured for my last marathon. So I'm just hoping I can keep all parts of me feeling good for this one. Next week is 20. Not thinking about that yet though. :)