Oh Boy. I’m nervous. It is the final week until race day and by the time you open this I’ll be either running or I’ll be face down on the pavement. But this is what my final week of preparation looked like.
Sunday (9.2)
While this is day is usually reserved to 5K Sunday with Nike, I felt the need to run more and thinking about the preparation I’ve done for Erie Marathon. With how my week unfolds, I have to take Sundays to get more mileage in. Also, I had so much frustration in class today because I continuously failed a Plagiarism quiz over and over again. So the run was a bit of a stress reliever too!
Monday (9.3)
Tuesday (9.4)
While I won’t get too much mileage in this week as the taper continues, I don’t want this week to have a bunch of 1 mile runs in. I planned on keeping up the mileage until about Friday and then I’ll keep the runs real short and they’re going to look more like “streak keeper” days than anything else. I felt fresh today.
Wednesday (9.5)
I am not sure what came over me today. I felt heavy in my legs and partly because I was not very active in terms of work. I had a lot more down time in the first half of the day and did a lot of work sitting so it certainly could have contributed to how I felt. I didn’t want to risk “injury” and kept it short.
Thursday (9.6)
The last “longer” run of the week.
Friday (9.7)
Easy shakeout day through West Chester before I planned on heading up to Erie Saturday morning. It was a short quick run to keep the legs loose and just finishing the last minute tune-up prior to Sunday.
Saturday (9.8)
Tomorrow is race day…here we go…well at least that is what I thought. Until lightning and Mother Nature made her presence known.
With a drastic change in scheduling for my commitments prior to throwing my hat into the bid for a Boston 2019 bib, it just didn’t seem logical for me to drive 6 hours to go to bed at 11:00 PM to wake up at 5:00 AM to run a race. I want to give myself the best chance and it just wasn’t going to give me the best opportunity.
Also because the forecast for Sunday in Erie is heavy winds and heavy rain. So that just sort of put icing on the cake. I grappled with it and gave myself the 24 hour rule to be upset with myself but it just wasn’t going to be the smartest decision.
With that said I turned Saturday into a training day. Got back into the the weight room lifted lower body and hit a 10K run.
If I am I giving realistic expectations, it is the goal to make the goal time of 3 hours and 5 minutes by at least 6-8 minutes coming in at a sub 3:00 marathon time. But if the humidity is going to be high there’s a chance I won’t even sniff the opportunity. In training, I’ve struggled with the humidity from the afternoon to evening runs.
Well that’s what was said prior to making the decision to step away from the Erie Marathon and my attempt for a Boston 2019 Qualifier since registration opens up on Monday, September 10th. I have another marathon later this year in November. I am running the Philadelphia Marathon in hopes of qualifying for Boston 2020.
So my training block changes a bit and I have races already built-in the next few months because of my journey to run 50 half-marathons in 50 states and then 50 full-marathons in 50 states and then conquer half-marathons and full-marathons on all 7 continents.
My running fun is far from over and it just happens to a slight bump in the road. New training block, same goal.
Massachusetts – Boston Half-marathon: October 7th
Virginia – Anthem Richmond Marathon: November 10th