95 Miles + Countdown to Grandma’s Marathon

And so the countdown to Grandma’s Marathon begins. . . .46 days!

I am nervous, excited, apprehensive, and did I say nervous? Especially when I start to think about how fast I have to run in order to get a sub-3 hour finish time. It calculates out to be an average pace of 6:51 minutes/mile. . . for 26.2 miles!!

I truly believe I can run a sub-3 hour marathon, but there are a lot of things that could go wrong and cause me not to reach my goal. I like sharing my goals with people to keep myself accountable, but I’m truly worried if I talk about it publicly too much I’ll put too much pressure on myself, and I will falter. So that’s all I’m going to say about that. In order to focus on this goal, I actually need to talk about it less. It is like at the start of a race when I just want to be left alone by myself and focus on what I need to do.

This past week was the highest mileage week since having Cullen. Last summer I hit 75 miles, so this 95 miles was quite a bit more. I did run 100 miles during the summers of 2012 and 2013, so this type of mileage isn’t completely new to me.

It was a good week of training overall, and I wasn’t too tired most days. Thursday was the toughest day, but other than that my runs went pretty well.

Monday

7 miles – easy

Originally I was supposed to do a double on this day, but my coach said to scrap the second run and save my energy for the next day’s tempo workout.

Tuesday

AM – 13 miles – tempo workout

2 x 20 minutes @ 6:20 pace (goal pace)

The first segment was all over the place. I forgot my watch, so I was going by feel, which was not effective. Splits – 6:11, 6:47, 6:27. But then my friend let me borrow her watch, and I nailed the splits – 6:19, 6:20, 6:19.

PM – 4 miles, easy | average pace – 7:30

Easy run in the afternoon, this time (surprisingly) without the stroller. I flew on this run!

Wednesday

AM – 8 miles, easy | average pace – 7:43

Ran a hillier route but felt good overall.

PM – 5 miles, easy | average pace – 7:51

Stroller run.

Thursday

15 miles, easy | average pace – 7:54

This was probably the toughest workout of the week. I think the two double days definitely left my legs feeling tired. If I didn’t have a coach telling me what to do, I probably would have only run about 5 miles.

Friday

8 miles, easy

I was supposed to run 9 miles this morning, but I didn’t have time before Craig had to leave for work.

Saturday

22 miles, long run

I had to get up at 4:30 a.m. in order to get the miles done before training group at 8:00 a.m. Luckily it was just starting to get light out when I started, which made me forget how early it really was.

Sunday

AM – 7 miles, easy

Pushed Cullen in the stroller. He’s only good for about 5 miles these days, but we did see a moose, so that was exciting for him.

PM – 6 miles, easy

I actually felt really good. It probably helped I wasn’t on my feet all day.

Total: 95 miles