Marathon Week 7

This post is coming a bit late. I didn't have an awesome week (in terms of running) and I have been trying not to focus on how bad it was.

Monday: 3.84
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 7.95
Thursday: 12.63
Friday: rest
Saturday: rest
Sunday: rest

Total miles: 24.42

Four rest days and almost 7 miles fewer than the previous week. So what happened?

At Cloud Gate (the bean)

A weekend in Chicago happened! To maximize the vacation vibe of the trip Mr. Shoe and I decided to try to get all of our running in before we left Saturday morning. My original plan was to run Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday morning before we left. This plan was a bit ambitious considering I had run Friday-Sunday the previous week.

So I set out to run 5 miles on Monday. About 3 miles in, I knew I wouldn't make it to 5. I was just too tired from Sunday's 13 miler. The dead leg feeling persisted on Tuesday so I decided to make that a rest day. The almost-eight on Wednesday felt so good, that I decided to push my long run up to Thursday (just 4 days after my previous long run). Looking back, that was definitely a mistake. My pace was awful (full minute slower than my usual training pace) and I didn't finish my 14 mile run. With my slower pace, this actually ended up being my longest run, time-wise (but not distance-wise). By the end my IT band was screaming at me to stop running.

That left me wondering what I should do on Friday and Saturday. With my IT band messing with my knee, Friday had to be a rest day. I was so convinced that I should try to squeeze in a quick 3-5 miles before our trip that I set my alarm extra early for Saturday. Instead I woke up in the middle of the night and decided to just shut of the alarm and give my body a break.

This week was definitely a mistake. Looking back, I can see much better ways to rearrange my runs and still get the weekend off. But it is over and done, so I am trying not to dwell on the negative. The positive is that I gave myself a 4 day break (this Monday was a rest day too) and my legs feel ready to tackle the next week of training!