Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon: Week 10

I dove back into training this week after taking some time off due to my achy quad. The injury isn't completely gone, but my treatment for it has helped a lot. I've been doing my fire hydrants and rolling the IT band and hip with a tennis ball every night. I still feel some discomfort when I walk and run, but it usually goes away within a minute or two. I'm confident I have it under control now, and that my taper will give it time to heal.

Speaking of taper, I only have two more hard weeks of training left! (With a step-back week in between, so taper is a little further away than I'd like to think.) While I love running, and I've loved doing a full training cycle again, I'm excited to get my two 20-milers in the books and rest up. I felt really good this week, and hopefully that will continue for the last bit.

Sunday, September 27
20 Minute Deep Stretch Yoga for the Hip Flexors and Quads
20 Minute Deep Stretch Yoga for the Hips
20 Minute Deep Stretch Yoga for the Neck and Shoulders

After Michael's parents left, I spent some quality time with my yoga mat to try and work out my quad.

Monday, September 28
5 mi easy (11:16 min/mile)

My quad felt a bit achy on the run, but I really noticed how tight my Achilles were. It was after the run that I noticed the pain was actually radiating from my IT band. I did some fire hydrants and was 100% in the morning.

Tuesday, September 29
5 mi easy (11:23 min/mile)

My legs felt like lead, but that is very normal for my second run back after a lay-off, so I wasn't worried. My breathing felt pretty heavy, but the humidity was over 90%, so again I assumed it was no big deal. There had been a lot of rain, so there were tons of frogs out. Lots of them were really small, so I felt like I was playing some sort of reverse frogger, especially as it got darker and I couldn't tell easily what was a leaf and was a frog. My shoes were clean when I got home, so I think I did okay not squashing any!

Wednesday, September 30
4.8 mi hills

I upped my hill sets from four to six. I was really nervous I wouldn't be able to finish, so I promised myself I could stop at four or five if I needed to. I thought my legs were going to fall off during the fifth, but I made it through!

When I recover at a 0% incline during the sets, I still leave the pace at my goal pace. I think this has done a really great job teaching my body to recover and lower my HR at that pace - hopefully this will pay off big on race day.

Thursday, October 1
rest

Friday, October 2
1 mi WU, 7 mi @ 9:53 min/mile, 1 mi CD - 9 mi total

I ended up taking the day off work (I had a PTO day left), but I still waited until the evening to run because it was so windy all day. There were a few times during the tempo section my HR got really high (when I had to go uphill into the wind), but otherwise I felt really comfortable at that pace. That was a huge confidence booster!

Saturday, October 3
19 mi long (11:22 min/mile)

It rained almost the whole run (and had been raining all the previous night and during the day), but I felt really good. I thought I might be having a slight bonk around mile 12, but after about a half mile, my salt tablet kicked in and I felt fine. I noticed I wanted my fuel every mile but never felt desperate for it - I think I might have my race day nutrition nailed down! I think the key is for me to eat a lot in the day or two before. Luckily I am very good at that.

Run Miles: 42.8 mi
Yoga Time: 59:57
Total Time: 8:51

This week will be a bit interesting because Tuesday is my last day at my current job, and then I will have five days off before I start my new one a week from tomorrow. I'm really excited for that time off, but it will be interesting to not have as much structure to my days. I plan to catch up on some stuff (like actually cleaning my house), but also having a little bit of relaxation. I only get five days of PTO my first year at my new job, which is fine, but I will need to save them all for my honeymoon, so I need to enjoy some extended time off while I can.

I'm hoping to be able to drive to a few new places to run - we have so many beautiful Metroparks here that I really need to take advantage of!