Catching Up

Okay, okay. So it's been a while. That doesn't mean that I have not been running. On the contrary... Today I completed week 6 of my 19 week program for the Tiberius Marathon in January 2011.

Scheduled run: 26 km in 2:56:04 an average pace of 6:46.

This is actually the longest run I have ever done- and you know what, it was so amazing! All the elements came together -overcast instead of full sun, lots of gatorade on my water breaks, and my stomache flu has passed!

I was worried on my last long run that I wasn't going to be cut out for this Marathon business. The weather has been horrendous the past two weeks ( 31c - 36c and full sun), which made it pretty impossible to run any time after 7:30 am - which means to get in a good long run you need to start at 5:00 am! Staying hydrated in this type of weather is very difficult, and I think dehydration has been holding me back.

Under these conditions, you play that mental game of "Yes, I can" - "No, I can't" - and while I have been the victor in this mental game, it can still be draining. As well, I was worried that this heavy training is only hard for me - and I felt so disappointed until I scanned all the blogs for newbies and not so newbies and found that everyone struggles with this training. It is hard. It's supposed to be hard - and that's part of the satisfaction we feel when we tuck one more training run, or a long run under our belts.

So next week my program calls for a bit of a drop in milage to 44 km (this week was 58 km) - which translates into 4 easy runs of 11 km each, and no speed work. After that, we go back to 60+ km per week. I can see that I need a bit of a break.

Looking forward to a restful day off!