Dang it, I thought I had this regular posting thing down. Apparently there is still room for improvement. Thankfully, I have both my Believe log and my training log for Nora to refer to for these weeks. When we left week 8 I had cried during my long run and had a massage on deck to see what was going down in these legs of mine.
I scrapped through (cuz I'm scrappy!) the first run of the week and lopsidedly ambled into my massage Wednesday evening. Spent the next hour getting worked over but good. Holy smokes did it make me cuss but the effects were immediate. The problems were equally apparent and unsurprising. Pelvic instability, hip weakness. I know ya'll know that song so please sing along. Running in the days after a massage is always a crapshoot but I usually end up feeling like I have cement for legs. I was pleasantly surprised that I could knock out 7 miles the next afternoon and 18 miles two days after that. I tweaked my right calf along the way and it made the last chunk of the 18 and the following day's 8 a little dicey. Lots of foam rolling and stretching going into my rest day, with fingers crossed. No big highs, no low lows, just decent. Somehow I didn't take any decent pictures for this week. Womp womp.
Week 9 summary:
Miles scheduled: 39
Miles ran: 39
Time on my feet: 7:50:01
High mileage week coming at ya. I struggled all week with feelings. If you think you can separate your training from the rest of your life, compartmentalize like a champ, you're a damn liar. I spent the week trying to run away from my grief. Wednesday it hurt so badly that I blew up a 3 mile recovery run trying to out-sprint the sobs. It didn't work AND it set me up for an uncomfortable 7 miles the next day. I knew it would and in the moment I just didn't care. I didn't. This week should have been about knocking out a 20 miler Saturday and another 10 miles on Sunday. But it wasn't. It was just about hanging on. Sometimes all I can do is put one foot in front of the other and draw the next short breath.
Week 10 summary:
Miles scheduled: 46
Miles ran: 46 (HOLY HELL I think that is a new high for me)
Time on my feet: 9:03:55 (basically a second job)
Coming off a week of training highs and emotional lows, I was uneasy. And tired. Grateful for my first cutback week. The high of the week was meeting Kara Goucher (amazing!) but that honestly isn't what stands out when I look over those 7 days. What stands out is that I quit on myself. I had 15 miles on the schedule for Saturday morning and I was planning to knock it out while I was still in the Norfolk area. Lauren sent me to a great spot to get those miles in, aptly named Dismal Swamp. It was pancake flat, paved, and straight. For most runners I imagine that sounds ideal, but for someone who can get stuck in her head it was a bad call. I was so bored. I even tried music and podcasts but it didn't help. I started to look for a reason to stop. Hmm those hips are aching again. That calf feels like it could cramp up at any second. Oops, my stride has a hitch I can stop now. I knew when I was doing it that I was quitting. I stopped just over 13 miles, knowing full well I would regret it and could have finished. These runs are about time on my feet. I could have walked it in. I could have stretched, taken a breath, and pushed on. But I didn't and I have to figure out how to not do it again. If these first 11 weeks have taught me nothing else, it is that my body is capable of more than I allowed myself to believe and my mind needs more work than I am willing to admit.
Week 11 summary:
Miles scheduled: 30ish (there was some fluidity there)
Miles ran: 26.55 (disappointed)
Time on my feet: 5:04:32
gratuitous fangirl moment
I hope Week 12 is less of a roller coaster than these three weeks have been. I want to feel strong in all aspects of my training as I get closer to race day and I don't think I'm doing everything I can just yet to make it so. What does "everything I can do" look like? I'm not sure. Just...more.