Twenty Two Miles, Track, and Taper Time...(sort of)

This blog entry is long overdue. With 14 days and 23 hours until the marathon, I feel like there is so much going on I don't have time to breathe, much less blog. Rather than write a novel, I will provide a brief synopsis of the last week:

March 27: Beautiful day for the 22-miler! All of the charity groups running the Marathon were out on the course doing the longest run of the training season. Twenty two is a terrifying number. To me, it seems like if you're going to run 22, you might as well tack on the remaining 4.2 miles and call it a day. Regardless, the run went great. I was super hydrated and energized, unlike the week before. I started out slow as Jack suggested, heading out from BC to Wellesley College at about a 9:20-9:30 pace. I was itching to speed up, so at the turnaround I picked it up. For the rest of the run I was fluctuating between 9 minute and 9:15 minute miles. I finished the 22 in 1 hr and 30 minutes. YAY! A four hour marathon is well within my reach (depending on the weather and how my body is feeling). It's not like I really am trying to run for time, I pretty much would just like to say I finished the Marathon, but it's nice to have a goal to work towards. Oh, and I finally tried a bullion cube. DISGUSTING. Try and imagine what it's like to have a cube of dry, chalky, condensed chicken stock in your mouth. And even once you've swallowed it there is still the gritty remnants of it in your mouth. I'll be trying salt capsules from here on out.

NOTE: I make a brief appearance in the video of the Charity run that appeared on Boston.com (around the 2:20 mark)

Track: WHY DO I GO TO TRACK?!!!?! Aside from the company of Stephanie and Jeff (and Jeff's witty banter) I loathe track. This week we did ladders. 200m with a 100m recovery, 400m with a 200m recovery, 600m with a 300m recovery, and 800m with a 400m recovery. Repeat. I don't mind the shorter distances, but running a 1/2 mile and a mile at an intense pace (8 minute miles or under anyone?) is disgusting, especially when all your doing is running in circles around a track. But hopefully it makes a difference....

Taper: Ok so now we're supposed to be tapering off our distances and running less. But when I looked at the calendar this week it still had us running 10-12 miles Thursday and 14-16 miles on Saturday, on top of the 5 miles on Monday and track workout Tuesday. Ummm, how is this a taper by any means? My body is rebelling and tired. SO, I say screw the schedule and I'm just going to do what I want. I ran Woodland on Thursday (all the hills on the marathon course, past BC, into Boston) for a nice 9 miles as a 9 minute mile pace, and 10 yesterday. The weather has been warm (70s) so I'm trying to acclimate just in case the marathon brings high temps. Today's Easter, so in anticipation of te brunch that awaits me, I took a lovely jog through Concord to get in 3 miles.

I can't believe the Marathon is 2 weeks from tomorrow...it's pretty much do or die time. I'm just going to do my best and savor every minute (and stay away from the bullion cubes).