Adventures In Marathon Training

So yesterday we started our tapper and only ran 13 miles, which I know is still a lot, but after our 20 miles 13 seemed like almost nothing. However, around mid way my knees started hurting and by mile 10 I couldn't really even run anymore. This is now really worrying me. Being so close to the marathon I wasn't about to push through the pain, so I wound up walking the last few miles yesterday to ensure I wasn't further hurting myself. I guess I did more damage to my knees last week than I realized, and well I guess it's my fault for having slacked off the self massage with the basket ball my coach told me I should be doing to prevent the knee injuries :(

So while it is pretty close and my knees really were hurting, I'm still not too worried. I'm hoping to get a massage this week, if not today, take it easy and probably not run too much, and do my basketball massage everyday.

Well it's now just under two weeks away, almost there!

Ok so this last Sunday we ran our 20 mile run! This would be our longest run of the season and afterward would start tappering off till Marathon day. Naturally I was worried about running 20 miles, but I was also excited to see how it was going to feel and to get it out of the way. I had exchanged my shoes for a 1/2 size larger, cleaned up my blisters, loaded up on carbs during the week and was pretty much ready for the run. However, I did stay out rather late the night before for a friend's going away party. But despite that I got up and got to our starting place, somewhat on time.

Our run was a great run, mostly down along the beach, warm temperatures, but not too warm and the best part was that the rain that had been there all weekend and a little in the morning had left us shortly after the start of our run! It still had left a lot of puddles and had flooded some of our course leaving me to run through the large puddles or climb through trees and bushes, but aside from all of that I was happy to see the clear skies.

I wound up running probably a little slower than I should have but I had good company that I was enjoying getting to know since I don't usually run with these two girls and so I decided to stay at their pace instead of taking off and being alone.

Overall the run was great, around mile 17 or 18 I was getting rather achy and my feet were really hurting, but I was determined to finish and nothing was that bad. So I kept it up and finished the 20 miles which I actually later found out was closer to 21 miles! I finished in just over 4 hours which I believe leaves me more than enough time to finish the remaining 6 miles for the marathon knowing that on race day I'll have a quicker pace and shorter stops at the water stations.

My knees were hurting after the run but it wasn't anything like they had previously been so I wasn't too worried.

Now it's just a matter of staying injury free and maintaining what I've built up to till marathon day!

Ok so I my next two posts are rather delayed, but every time I try to post something on here my computer freezes and I lose all that I have written and get too annoyed to come back and try again.

Anyway, so two weeks ago we went out for our 16 mile run. Prior to this the longest I had run was 13 miles, so I was a little worried. However, the run turned out great! I was full of energy, running at a much quicker pace and just in great spirits the whole time. I came in just under three hours leaving me to believe I really could make the 5 1/2 hour cut off in the marathon. I decided it was probably due to my good nights rest and my new shoes I had just purchased the day before but had not yet run in.

While I was feeling great about the run I was saddened to find out my feet were covered in blisters upon taking my shoes off, thus telling me my new shoes that I was so excited about were too small and I'd have to go exchange them :(

My feet were gross but I felt great and I had run 16 miles! Next week, we up the antie to 20!