Greetings, Tribe!
It’s been almost two weeks since my half marathon and it’s time to look ahead. Between my half marathon and my marathon training, I will have had two weeks of unstructured running. Week one I didn’t run at all and week two was all about falling in love again.
I never fall out of love with running, but I certainly don’t always want to put my running shoes on and get my butt out the door. The week after a race is the perfect time for me to get a little personal time away from running so that I want it more and one week off means I don’t lose a lot of my fitness.
This past week of running has been pretty awesome. After having a week off, I feel fresh and wanting to run. It also helps that I’m finally on my summer work schedule, which is oddly more consistent than my school year schedule.
Wednesday’s run was the highlight of my week. It came after a couple of days of feeling, “I’m almost 35 and have done nothing meaningful with my life!!!!” (Hopefully I’m not the only person who has days like this….am I?) Adam and I took off at 9:30pm, which meant it was dark. No one could see us and I couldn’t look at my watch. I was at the point where I was either going to cry or run my heart out. Gosh darn it, the run came through for me! We went 4.25 miles, my average pace was 8:04 with my 3rd mile at 7:27 pace. Not a consistently paced run, but I was able to prove to myself that I can push harder than I have in the past. That was the boost I needed.
I rounded out the week with some strength training, a trail run and an easy road run. Tonight will be my last casual long run, and then official fall marathon training begins!!!
