Confession

Well, I am officially a wimp.

Last week I was a working mom and spent five nights up till midnight working on a catering job I had on Friday night. I also ran my 6 mile run, did some plyometrics, did sprints, and did a nice tempo run plus hills for 8.5 miles. Then the Friday of my event, I ran a quick 5 miles. My running was on schedule, my chocolate mousse was made, my key lime components, frostings and cake pops were ready to go. By the time I finished my 5 mile run on Friday morning I felt on schedule, and good to go. I had even been a good mom all week, staying up late so that the boys didn't have to see me working too much.

All I had left to do was finish the final components of my dessert, attend the wedding (who happened to be of close family friends), set up the dessert buffet, and after the wedding head on home to crash in bed.

Oh, and then run 20 miles.

If I were catholic, this would be my confession. I did not run my 20 miles this weekend. I have run 18 miles twice and 19 miles once. I have run hundreds and hundreds of miles over the past year to first prepare for my half marathon last May, and then to prepare for this upcoming Marathon. But I did not run my 20 miles this weekend. I started to question my discipline right after my five miler on Friday morning. In the shower at the YMCA, by some weird freak accident, my razor sliced three long scratches into each of my shins while shaving. It stung. A lot. And when I run, I sweat out salt. A lot. So much, in fact, that I have to basically scrape off the salt crust from my body when I am done. The thought of pouring salted sweat all over the cuts in my legs was not sounding too good. Who ever even CONSIDERS the pain one might feel when salt is poured over a freak shaving accident induced wound on ones legs? I have not read one thing in Runners World about that.

Then at the wedding, they had the most amazing food ever. It was chips (greasy) and salsa (spicy) and beans (fiber) and chicken enchiladas (protein). Hmm....I savored every non-carbohydrated bite of it. And the thought crossed my mind again, that perhaps running 20 miles in the morning on the most unsuitable pre-race meal ever might be a bad idea...or at least a really bad experience in the making.

The thought also occurred to me, that I was out of Gus. And then the other thought occurred to me that I had stayed up past midnight (for me this is WAY past bedtime) and on my feet for five nights in a row.

And on Saturday morning, I stayed in bed until 9 am. I drank lots of lots of coffee. And I sat around the house all day basically doing nothing.

Now I have a decision to make, as we are now about three weeks out from the Marathon. Do I do the 20 miler next weekend? Do I do four, 5-mile runs and say I ran 20 miles only in increments? This is the start of the taper, but sadly I have the 20 miler hanging over my head now. My plan as of this writing is to run four good, hard runs this week and then on Saturday, I will see how I feel. This is my first marathon and my goal is to finish, not to get an amazing time or a PR (although technically no matter what it will be my best ever marathon time!).

I think in marathon training as with any distance race training it is important for us recreational runners to be easy on ourselves. We run and we run and we follow our plans but there will be great running days and then days we just aren't feeling up to it. Some days we don't want any more rice and oatmeal, or sticky carb gel-type food. Some days our feet hurt, or we get the flu, or we have to get up early to take our kids to school. That's okay. Obviously the hope is that there are more good days than bad. I feel like most of the posts are about the days that are hard, but there are some really fast, fun running days in the mix too. I plan on seeing a lot of good days in the weeks ahead!