Welcome to the final weeks of my marathon training recap. I officially have constant sweaty palms just thinking about the days I have left of training, and then final “reward” of the actual race. One moment I’m confident and proud, and the next I’m in a cold sweat, complete with palpitations and panic.
Week 16 was a pretty eventful “taper.” To my knowledge, tapers should be uneventful and laid back. Not so for this runner.
Tuesday — 4 Miles
I ran on the treadmill on Tuesday. Nothing to write home about. I was technically supposed to run 5 miles on Tuesday but I was tired and ran out of time in the morning so I decided to cut it short. Gosh the treadmill is so boring sometimes.
Wednesday — 5 Miles
Wednesday’s run was exciting. I woke up, checked the weather and according to the weather.com app, it was “feels like 39˚.” Then I checked the AccuWeather app, which said “feels like 48˚.” I opted for 48. It was not. What I should have done, but foolishly did not, was go back inside and change my shirt. Instead, I ran my 5-miler and froze my booty off. And I also left my sunglasses at home. I’m not sure if this worked in my favor or not, because I did stumble (almost literally) upon a deer due to being darn near blinded by the sunrise. Normally I sweep as I run to keep an eye out for wildlife and other such things. But as the sun was rising it was really hard to continuously sweep. Before I knew it — BAM! — I was inches away from a deer’s face. I jumped to the other side of the path and booked it. I’m not sure if the sunglasses would have helped or hindered. If I had seen the deer ahead of time, I might have freaked out. In this case it was probably better that I didn’t know what was coming!
But I did get this amazing, beautiful photo of the sun rising through the trees. Just breathtaking.
I continued on my way and BOOM! Two more deer! Ugh… This time one was on one side of the path, and the other (mama) was on the other side. If I kept running I would potentially be splitting them up. I opted to turn around and wait it out. At first I wasn’t sure if the mom was going to go across or not, but she eventually did. I also called out to them before I started running again (and as I ran by) so they knew where I was and I didn’t startle anyone… I’ve been chased by deer before. A few times. It’s no good.
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| Bah humbug… |
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| Happy to have made it past the deer. Also my first successful runfie. Run selfie. Yep. |
After my jaunt through the park, I came to a side street with a decent downgrade. Normally I control myself when I’m running downhill. But I just felt so happy and strong that I decided to let my inhibitions go and remember why I love running. As I raced down the road I felt so free — literally like my 5 year old! It was super fun. I love running fast and naturally.
The downhill ended and I slowed down quite a bit. As I was rounding the corner to head back home — SURPRISE!!! — more freaking deer! This time there were two (again) and I would be running between them (again), but they were separated by a large, busy road. Seriously? How much more annoying could these deer get? I kept running and hoped for the best. Thankfully no one chased me on Wednesday.
Thursday — 5 Miles + Strength Training
Thursday was kinda exciting, too, but not quite as much action. I had another 5-miler on the schedule and was hoping to run with Julie, but we never connected up in time. I headed out (dressed more appropriately for the weather this time) and had a decent clip throughout. I decided to change up my route a bit and it was kind of nice to run with traffic and keep myself occupied. I did encounter three deer, though, who were all crowding the path. It was annoying, but I did get a decent shot of them. Fortunately another runner came rounding the corner and they scampered off the pathway for us to continue our runs.
Saturday — 12 Miles
12 miles. Taper time. Should have been easy, right? Could not be more wrong. A couple of things went wrong on this run. First and foremost, I went out too fast. I quickly figured it out, though, so I’m pretty sure I saved myself from having a horrific run. Second thing, we did trails. Julie and I did trails for part of our 20-miler and it was really fun, so we went back for more. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Sara has been pining for trails for our training runs and Julie and I kept saying, “no, let’s wait until after the marathon…” and I didn’t heed my own warning. Kicking self.
So what did happen on the run? Well, Julie, Noemi and I met up with Eric and David. We set out for 12 miles, and picked up Sara about 4 miles in. Julie and Eric, our resident super-fast badass friends, plowed on ahead. The trails were pretty, the weather was perfect. I started out with long sleeves, a tee, and arm sleeves, and by the end I had shed everything except the tee. I even tried my first gel if you can believe it! It was freaking gross!!! How do you people eat this stuff?! I actually saved part of it for later on and the second time around it was less gross. But it was still gross. Blech! I’m going to try it again this weekend just to be sure it was awful. But maybe it won’t be so bad the third time around?
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| Team SpoolPiece reunited at last! |
We didn’t see much wildlife except for two deer (what’s with the deer?!), some black squirrels, yadda yadda yadda.
Overall the run was pretty laid back. The route I mapped for us had several loops, and we weren’t entirely sure where one of the loops was going to dump us out. Fortunately it dumped us out here:
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| Who doesn’t love a random canoe shot? |
So let’s get back to what failed for this run… the trails. Damn the trails. Sara and David split off from Noemi and me around mile 9 or so. At mile 11 my knee started screaming. I kept trying to keep on, but I just couldn’t. I had to walk so much. From my detective work and speculation, I believe the condition of the trails were to blame. The trails we were on were bridle/multipurpose trails. What happens to those trails is when it rains and the trails are muddy, the horses’ hooves sink into the mud. It then dries and hardens, leaving very hard and uneven terrain. I suspect that my feet were pronating and supinating so much that I overworked my IT band, leaving it stretched, swollen, and sore, and basically rendering my left knee useless.
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| We’re so badass. This is also before my knee started ruining my life. I was less badass when that happened. |
I was am very worried about it. The rest of Saturday I had to spend cleaning the house for a showing on Sunday. We were also attending a wedding on Saturday evening, so I was basically going to be on my feet until midnight. As soon as I got home, I started foam rolling and stretching. It didn’t help much. Late Saturday night (around 4 am) I ended up popping a few ibuprofen to help with the pain.
On Sunday I foam rolled, taped, and did yoga. On Monday it was feeling much better. But I am still worried about it, so fingers crossed the rolling and stretching is working.
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| KT Tape fail. |
So we’ll see what this week holds for me. Hopefully things are uneventful and my knee was just temporarily overworked. Very little mileage this week as well. I’m looking at 4, 3, and 4. It’s crazy! One more “long” training run and then marathon time…
Squeeeeee!
Have a great day, y’all!
xo
Have you had a running-related injury? What did you have and how long did it take to treat it?
