Week In Review: Nov 14 - 20

This is my weekly training journal. Including it in the blog gives me a little extra accountability in the mileage department & helps me stick to my schedule. :)

2 Weeks to Cal International Marathon

ACK!

Where have the weeks gone??

These three weeks between Clarksburg & CIM were the ones I was most concerned about when I first signed up for the marathon. I knew the biggest thing I'd have to manage was recovering fully from the half whilst still staying focused on the full as I tapered. To that end, I started off the week with 2 days of complete rest.

Wednesday: 4 miles easy, in the spirit of "reverse taper" (though none of these were at race pace). I kept it easy, but I could definitely tell that I had raced that weekend and wasn't anything like recovered yet. The now-3-month-old strain in my calf was particularly bothersome & referring a bit of pain up the rest of my leg, which was unpleasant, but not bad enough that I had to stop.

Thursday: 6 miles easy 2 miles easy. I had an errand to run to a store about a mile from home, so I figured I'd split this run into 2 miles to the store & back, then 4 more after swinging back by the house. I had so much pain in my right calf (and all the way up through my leg), though, that I figured it was a better idea to just to quit while I was ahead (ie, not limping) & give my already-shredded calf muscles a little extra time to heal. It's days like this that I wish I had access to some form of no- or low-impact cardio (elliptical, biking, swimming, etc.), because although I think cutting my run short was smart, it would've been nice to get the cardio portion in.

Saturday: 10 miles (2 wu + 8 @ MP). This was really Friday's run, but my calf was still feeling funny, and I wanted to make sure that I was healthy enough to get this one in. It started out discouragingly difficult ("I wonder if there's still time to sell my bib...") & progressed to quite lovely ("I am totally going to BQ my first time out without even trying."). Kind of weird how that works, huh? (Suspecting reality will be somewhere between these two extremes.)

Sunday: 10 miles easy Still having an unsettling amount of pain in my right calf and some new & exciting pain in my left knee, so I just stayed home & rested.

Grand Total: 16 miles

Bah...I know nothing I'm likely to do at this point will make much difference come Dec. 4, and it *was* a recovery week, but it still made feel a bit nervous to see numbers that low. Hoping there's no such thing as over-tapering...