The Final Countdown!

Marathon Training Week 20 Recap

This is it, the last days of training before 26.2! I can hardly believe it's been four and a half months since I started down this road.  Since February 20th I've been preparing my body and my mind to take on this task. They are both ready, chomping at the bit even, to knock out this run and forever be able to call myself a marathoner. Unfortunately, the one thing I couldn't have prepared for has happened...I am sick. Now before you get all "oh, you poor thing" on me, please know that I'm not writing about this for sympathy, this blog is first and foremost a way for me to journal my training for posterity and have a record of what I've done in case I'm ever crazy enough to do this again, so it seems important to include it. And, really, I am not dying, it's nothing major, but leave it to me to go the entire winter and spring with nary a sniffle, only to come down with a chest cold the week of my biggest race ever!

Monday I was up early to get my three miles done. When I woke up I had a tickle in my throat which I brushed off as early morning dry mouth. I started out on a familiar route from my house, after a mile in I still felt sluggish and the tickle turned into a cough, uh oh. My left foot was also a little achy, a sensation I haven't had before, so I walked a minute to try to shake it off and hack up what I could in order to keep going. I got back at it and finished in a decent time overall. But the worrying had begun...coughing and sore feet was not the way I wanted to start this week.

Tuesday I met Katie at the Y for our early morning run. We planned on doing three miles and started out easy, losing ourselves in conversation. Without realizing it, we soon found ourselves running at a 9:17/mile pace. We hit our turn around point and Katie said "I want to run my fastest 5K ever, under 30 minutes". So we cut down on talking and just put our heads down and ran. Our second mile was a little slower, running a 9:20, but we really picked it up on the last mile, finishing strong with an 8:50! We were both pretty excited with the outcome. Our official time was 28.20, which was her fastest 5K and my second fastest to date! My lungs felt okay, not great, but I was hopeful that maybe this cold would not get much worse, or that at least it wouldn't affect my running too much.

Wednesday was busy, and rainy, and I was feeling pretty run down, so I decided to skip running...I only had two more miles left to run before the big day, so I figured I could do them on Thursday morning instead...I didn't really want to do my last training run feeling like crap on the treadmill. I got a lot of work done, finished up some laundry, and took Logan and Kayley to the pool. I was actually feeling kind of sad. I was frustrated with being sick, I had just seen the race-day weather report (thunderstorms at the start), and I was just generally preoccupied with life, so when I got home I was super excited to see a package on the counter for me. It was from my friend Jill in Texas. Jill has been a huge inspiration for me, she is a marathoner, an Ironman, and an all-round amazing person who has dealt with a lot of adversity and still manages to have a hearty sense of humor and is always ready with training tips and much needed encouragement. I tore into the package to find a card, and an awesome letter with race-day advice and wonderful words of support. The letter was perfect, it was just the pick-me-up I needed. Jill also included a special gift, a t-shirt from one of her marathons. In fact, the shirt was from the race that she qualified for Boston in. She is also a soccer player and said that it was tradition at matches for teams to exchange jerseys afterwards as a sign of camaraderie and respect...so she was starting that tradition with my marathon. I can't wait to put a shirt from Grandma's in the mail for her :)

Jill managed to know exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it!

Thursday morning I woke up with super heavy lungs after a restless night's sleep. My head hurt, my nose was stuffy, and I was hacking like a 6-pack a day smoker. Not good. I forced myself out of bed because I really felt like I needed this run. I needed to clear my head, and I needed to feel like this cold hadn't beaten me. So I geared up and headed out. I felt slow on the first mile, which was fine, this was supposed to be a super easy run anyway. My lungs were okay, I tried taking in a few deep breaths and I didn't dissolve into fits of coughing, a good sign. I hit my turn around point and headed in. My legs started to feel a little lighter and deep breaths came a little easier. I kept my pace slow, but I was strong. I got back home, clipped the leash on the dog and set off for cool down mile walk around the neighborhood. Success. I had run 2 miles without dying...now I just have to do that 13 more times on Saturday!

20 weeks, 404 miles under my belt. While I have a cold and there are supposed to be storms at the start line, I am ready. I'm a little disappointed, but not defeated. I can't wait for race day and getting my turn to belong to that exclusive club....I'm going to be a marathoner, and it's going to be great!