Week 9 of 15

August 20 to August 26 marked the 9^th week of my training for the Nike Women’s Marathon, it was a brutal week.  

I had Monday off work and was planning on doing a 7 mile tempo run, but I slept through my first alarm woke up at 10 had something to eat and went back to bed. I pretty much spent my day of sleeping. What a waste of a perfectly good training day.

Tuesday was a Nike Training Club day Get Toned Competitor it worked me. It was full of squats and lunges. Normally I am super excited about that but I think pushing myself extra hard on Sunday had an impact on my body so I was still pretty sore on Tuesday but I made it through it and I defiantly feel like I am getting stronger. After work I went to the park to do my tempo runs. They started out great with my first mile being 8’14”/mile with each mile getting faster after that until mile 4 when I hit 7’04”/mile and then mile 5 I fell off and ended up running 11’11”/mile. A 7 mile tempo run turned into a 4 mile tempo run due to my last mile falling off and time.

Wednesday, I had a plan of doing a 8 mile run after work, but I ended up leaving work late and traffic was horrible. I actually didn’t end up home with something to eat until 6:30. I had a great plan to get up early on Thursday run 8 in the morning and 5 at lunch but I didn’t have a running partner and the days are starting to get shorter. I don’t really feel 100% safe running around the river by myself so I opted to stay in and do it after work. At lunch when I went out to do 5 miles I ended up having a horrible run. I felt dizzy and my body was heavy. My dietician believes it is because I am not taking enough whole grains in.

Friday was a yoga rest day that I really needed and Saturday morning brought another long run. I was up before my alarm actually went off on Saturday and I wish I got up and pushed myself out the door. Instead I stayed in bed for an extra half hour. The weatherman was only calling for a high of 19 so I wasn’t in a huge rush to get out the door. I ended up at the running trail around 9:30 and asked Meho if he would run with me. This was the first time I had done 20 miles and I was really worried about it. What if I got sick again like Thursday, what if I passed out what if I couldn’t do the mileage! He was more than happy to run with me and keep me motivated and going, I am so thankful for him. He has been so supportive through this, listening to my worries, to my accomplishments, helping me through my failures. Honestly I wouldn't be able to do it without him by my side. I mean how many other peoples boyfriends would be willing to run 20 miles with them on a Saturday morning. I always have really awesome runs up until mile 13. I always hit proverbial wall at mile 13 it seems that my legs don’t want to go any further that my body just crashes. I believe that fueling better will help me with this. What helps you fuel for a long run? How do you manage to not hit the wall.

I was also a little frustrated. I ran with both my watch and my iphone. My iPhone always dies around mile 13ish and I am stuck without anything to help me through the rest of my run. I looked at my watch distance and my iPhone distance side by side I noticed that they had different mile markers. I went onto google and mapped out a route and realized that my watch is a little bit off, so in all reality I ended up running more than 20 miles on Saturday. I likely ran close to 21, not that running more is bad it will be more helpful in the end but I could tell my body wasn’t starting to run low and I had to run further lol.

I feel I am more ready for this coming week. I feel like I know now what my body needs to perform and I am getting that and I will be better prepared for this upcoming week. I have altered my diet a little bit to add more whole grains to it but I haven’t taken anything out. I think at this point I need to keep getting the proper amount of food in me and keep my calories up.

Despite last week being a bad week for training I am ready to take on this week.

Happy Training.